Animal Crossing: New Horizons players have likely been spending time in Blathers' museum since the game's most recent update added Redd and his fake painting schemes. However, nobody could have anticipated the real-world paleontological discovery that has given fans of the life-simulation game something to rally behind other than their desire to find a legitimate copy of Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
On Wednesday the science journal Nature published an article produced through the efforts of over a dozen researchers and professors from around the world that presents "unambiguous evidence" that a dinosaur family known as spinosaurids from the Cretaceous era were sometimes semi-aquatic. This development is based on an "unexpected and unique" tail fossil with a "flexible fin-like organ" discovered for the Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus — which Animal Crossing: New Horizons players should recognize as one of the creatures they can donate to Blathers.
According to National Geographic this is a landmark discovery because it makes the Spinosaurus the world's "first known swimming dinosaur." However, Animal Crossing players have taken it upon themselves to flood social media with some humorous takes on how the fossil collection they have been putting together has actually been inaccurate this whole time, and other comments on how interesting it would be if the developers actually updated the Spinosaurus to reflect this new reality.
Fossils have been a collectible item in the Animal Crossing series since the beginning, but in New Horizons they are arguably more popular than ever thanks to the game's realistic museum construction. One player has even imagined a system for a museum gift shop that could duplicate fossils for players, giving them more opportunities to utilize creatures like the Spinosaurus on their islands.
Don't think Animal Crossing fans get to have all the fun with the awe-inspiring world of paleontology, though. At least one video game player who goes by FiniteSly on Twitter pointed out that a swimming Spinosaurus with a long, flat tail resembles the Lagiacrus from Capcom's hugely popular Monster Hunter franchise.
Though Animal Crossing players will have to wait and see if New Horizons updates its Spinosaurus model one day, luckily the game offers plenty to do in the meantime. With the start of May comes a host of new bugs to catch and fish to reel in for those who want to keep the other wings of their museum stocked up.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Sources: Nature, National Geographic