Author: Halichoeres

I'm a biologist and illustrator teaching anatomy, evolution, and similar subjects at a university in Chicago. I'm on a mission to hunt down the best toy version of every Paleozoic and Mesozoic animal and plant, which leads to some incongruous display shelves. That mission also means a pretty motley assortment of reviews, with maybe a bit of a bias in favor of fishes.

All reviews by this author

Review: Tianyulong (Age of the Dinosaurs by PNSO)

3.9 (14 votes)

A lot of ornithischian dinosaurs lacked teeth in the front of the mouth, having only cheek teeth that ground up food, and often a beak for clipping vegetation. The family Heterodontosauridae (“different-toothed lizards”) was unusual among ornithischians in having three different kinds of teeth in different parts of the mouth.

Review: Armadillosuchus (Dino Mecard by Sono Kong)

4.2 (5 votes)

There are only about 22 species of crocodilians now living, but they belong to a much larger and more ecologically diverse group called Pseudosuchia. Pseudosuchia includes the living crocodiles and gharials as well as the crocodile stem-group, namely the vast array of extinct animals more closely related to crocodilians than to birds.

Review: Prestosuchus (Wild Safari by Safari Ltd.)

4.9 (18 votes)

Safari Ltd’s 2019 slate of releases made a lot of wishes come true, especially where up-to-date versions of popular dinosaurs are concerned. But for me, the most exciting release was the Triassic pseudosuchian Prestosuchus. It’s pretty rare that Safari makes Triassic animals–currently, the only other genera they offer from this period are Coelophysis and Postosuchus.

Review: Mandageria [sarcopterygian] (Paleozoo)

4.3 (6 votes)

About 300 kilometers from Sydney lies the town of Canowindra, New South Wales. In the 1950s a road worker in Canowindra chanced upon some fossils, and in the 1990s paleontologists started working on the site in earnest, eventually revealing one of the world’s finest assemblages of freshwater animals from the Late Devonian.

Review: Ancient Fossils (Toob by Safari Ltd)

4.2 (21 votes)

Of all the product lines offered by stalwart manufacturer Safari Ltd, the “Toob®” line gives them the freest rein to explore unusual taxa. I’m personally fondest of the Toobs that furnish small versions of small animals that might scale well with Safari’s full-size figurines. We’ve reviewed some of their most interesting Toobs featuring “alive” animals here, here, here, here, and here.

Review: Estemmenosuchus (CollectA)

4.8 (21 votes)
The Permian Period gets neglected by toy companies, despite its huge assortment of outrageously strange animals. Maybe this is just because there aren’t any true dinosaurs. When we do get a Permian animal, it’s usually Dimetrodon, where we’re really spoiled for choice. Today we’ll look at Estemmenosuchus, a distant relation of Dimetrodon with anatomy that was just as strange.

Review: Axelrodichthys (Dinotales Series 1 by Kaiyodo)

5 (6 votes)

When you hear the term “living fossil,” one of the first examples you’re likely to think of is the coelacanth. Fossil coelacanths were first described over 160 years ago, and their fossil record spans the Mesozoic, even reaching back to the Devonian. That means coelacanths have been on Earth for more than twice as long as mammals, but there are no fossils known from later than the Cretaceous.

Review: Sciurumimus (CollectA)

4.5 (13 votes)

Normally when toy companies make juvenile dinosaurs, they just take known adult dinosaurs and make a smaller cuter version. Even respectable companies like Safari and CollectA have gone this route in the past. I typically don’t have any interest in these, but a fair number of taxa are known only from infant or juvenile remains.

Review: Dunkleosteus (Chap Mei)

3.5 (10 votes)

In the past few years we’ve seen an explosion of Dunkleosteus figures from all kinds of companies, from masterpieces like Favorite Co’s rendition to worthy-but-flawed efforts like CollectA’s to fairly bad ones like the subject of today’s review. It’s the most popular prehistoric fish in plastic, eclipsing the huge but otherwise utterly boring C.

Review: Tawa (Conquering the Earth by Schleich)

3.8 (13 votes)

The kinds of dinosaur toy fans who care about accuracy and realism tend to find Schleich frustrating, perhaps because Schleich has, at the very least, the technical capacity to make outstanding figures. For example, their recent Kentrosaurus was a solid effort, but in the same year as a good figure like that they’ll release arrestingly ugly toys.

Review: Paleozoic Creatures (Colorata)

5 (10 votes)

Colorata has been making boxed sets of dinosaurs for several years now, which occasionally include dinosaur contemporaries like pterosaurs or mosasaurs, but in December of 2017 they released their first boxed set of prehistoric figures featuring exclusively non-dinosaur taxa. Say hello to the Extinct Animals: Paleozoic Creatures set.

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