Thomas became friends with Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1880s, after he had read an academic paper penned by Doyle, in the British Medical Journal. Thomas travelled to Edinburgh, to meet the then doctor, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, to acquaint himself with the flora and fauna of rainforests in the region, as he began to plan his expedition in search of a magnetic anomaly. Over tea, it transpired that Doyle had collected a number of rare species of flora close to the border with Colombia, the fascinating carnivorous plant, Triffidus celestus, and Trffidus ambulata. Unexpectedly, not only did Doyle express a great interest in the region, but also wished to join him, to ascend and explore the gigantic plateaus where it was believed various isolated species of plant had evolved, which might provide unique medicinal qualities.

The plateau itself was hundreds of miles south of the Tepui range, although remarkably similar. A good four-week trek would lead them to the base of a vast, unyielding fascia. Scaling the wall was the work of many guides, and Thomas. Eventually, they devised a complicated elevator system, where four men, including Thomas, would climb to the summit, and haul Doyle up, who refused to climb himself, on a harness. The plateau, which would later be named by Doyle, with particular colonial flare, as Maple White Land in his fictitious rendering of their trip, was home to, not only thousands of species of unidentified flora, but also a plethora of prehistoric animals. Doyle asserted that the animals could not be dinosaurs, for they more closely resembled birds. Thomas dismissed such observations as old-fashioned, pointing to the discovery of the Archaeopteryx fossil found 20 years prior, near Langenaltheim in Germany - a dinosaur covered in feathers. They argued over whether the animals were direct descendants of dinosaurs, isolated for millions of years but, as mentioned before, Thomas proscribed to the idea of an apocalyptic extinction event, and that it would have been impossible for so many species to survive. It was soon apparent that some form of anomalous phenomena was at play, as they witnessed bizarre meteorological events above the plateau. Thomas would surmise that massive deposits of exotic matter were causing gravitational distortions - matter that may have arrived there as the result of an asteroid impact - and that random migrations of species had managed to survive crossing through some temporal corridor. This included various species of theropod, sauropod and ceratopsians. The largest carnivores witnessed were an unknown species of Tyrannosaur, similar to Yutyrannus huali.

Below are various preserved specimens of dinosaurs. Three feathered Dromeaosaurs and a Triceratops infant.