Philosoraptor (combination of Philosopher and Velociraptor) meme started to bloom. The memes use an image macro featuring an illustration of an Velociraptor paired with captions depicting the dinosaur as being immersed with quirky paradoxes or metaphysical inquiries.
It began when Sam Smith created and released the Philosoraptor image as a T-shirt design for sale on the online retailer LonelyDinosaur. The image was made by combining several images of Velociraptors Smith downloaded from the internet.
The image was first used for memes, posted on YTMND page titled "New species of dinosaur discovered!", featuring a photoshopped image of a Velociraptor from the 1993 action film Jurassic Park holding a copy of Plato's complete works. Then on 2009, the earliest archived appearance of an image macro featuring the Philosoraptor illustration was posted on 4chan /b/ board.
Later that year, Smith sent an email to Lonely Dinosaur, saying that he didn't mind his Philosoraptor being used as memes.