Watch: People react to photo of Steven Spielberg killing dinosaur

Dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years, but they are still very much alive in the vivid imaginations of many people.

Pop culture website Uni Lad posted a video of people reacting to a resurfaced photo of American director Steven Spielberg posing in front of a dead Triceratops, and it is pure classic.

The photo was first posted by internet humourist Jay Branscomb on his Facebook page over a year ago, with the caption: "Disgraceful photo of recreational hunter happily posing next to a Triceratops he just slaughtered. Please share so the world can name and shame this despicable man."

His post exploded with harsh comments condemning the Jurassic Park director (ironic) for animal cruelty (#saywut).

Many people fell for the satirical photo - that dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years, or that Spielberg was just sitting with one of his props from Jurassic Park.

Many people in the Uni Lad video mistook the triceratops for a rhinoceros.

"Hypocrite!," a woman labelled Steven Spielberg after she identified him. "He's all for like animals and stuff and he's killing them. (sic)"

"I don't think you really see that many (triceratops ) at the zoo," another interview said.

The photo appears to have gone viral again in the wake of the recent killing of a popular lion in Zimbabwe called Cecil, which triggered international outrage.

The hunter, an American dentist by the name of Walter James Palmer, paid US$50,000 (S$68,371) for the hunt. AFP reported that the reaction to the senseless poaching was reach fever pitch on the same day, with nearly 100,000 tweets carrying the hashtag #CecilTheLion, while an online petition demanding justice for Cecil had drawn 95,000 signatures.

However, the reaction wasn't short of irony either.

A Zimbabwean doctoral student studying in USA wrote in to the New York Times expressing his bewilderment at the overreaction to the poaching, calling lions 'objects of terror' due to the number of livestock and people killed by the beasts.

"We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people," Goodwell Nzou wrote.

grongloh@sph.com.sg