Europasaurus holgeri is a basal macronarian sauropod. It lived during the Late Jurassic (middle Kimmeridgian, about 154 million years ago) of northern Germany, and has been identified as an example of insular dwarfism resulting from the isolation of a sauropod population on an island within the Lower Saxony basin.
Near the German town of Goslar, Lower Saxony, from 1998 on the bones of at least 11 individuals have been found, among them some juveniles. Due to the fact these sauropods lived on islands, their relatively small size was 8 or so metres at most.
As you all know, I like German company Bullyland making figures of German prehistoric animals, such as their supreme Procynosuchus and the exotic Parachiritherium and the classic Archaeopteryx. It has become a nice tradition, and I like this Europasaurus, too. The only little flaw is the somewhat goofy head, mostly due to the design of the eyes and the teeth. But first things first.
Bullyland Eurpoasaurus is 33 cm long and 21,5 cm tall. This makes it 1:30 in scale, and the inscription at the belly of the figure confirms this.
Its skin texture is detailed, revealing supposed scales, wrinkles and nodules. The sculpt is fine, all the muscles are at the right places. We don´t see a tail dragger but an agile animal holding its tail up.
The colouring is quite credible, albeit a little boring. It´s simply bright brown with some darker brown dots and even brighter brown at the bottom side.
The detail of the feet is brilliant, showing the correct number of claws at the hands (probably just one) and the feet (four). Sauropods are supposed to have walked on the tips of their fingers, bolstered by soft tissue cushions, reminiscant of elephants.
Now to the less pleasing part of the replica: The head. I can´t exactly tell what my problems with it are, overall I would say the sauropods face looks a little ridiculous here. As if it was smiling, excusing for the companies insufficient job with the eyes and mouth. But this is my personal taste – in my opinions many Bullandy suffer from this shady face style, just check their Batrachotomus. Anyhow, the nostrils are at the right place, which is a plus. Bullylands in other respects decent Spinophorosaurus, for exemple, carries its nostrils at the very top of the head, which I criticised in my review of it. And the more I look at the Europasaurus´ head, the less it annoys me. Hm, doesn´t it even look a little, well, cute?
Bullyland´s 1:30 Brachiosaurus and Hans for comparison, one could think the Europasaurus is its child
However, I like this figure very much. It stands in one row with their abovementioned classics. It´s easily available, for example here at Urzeitshop or at Everything Dinosaur.
Enjoy this figure! To me it´s a 9,5 out of 10 figure.
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It looks like a typical head for a Bullyland model and honestly I do think it looks better than that on the Safari Shunosaurus.
Eh, somehow toy sauropod heads always look stupid to me when their mouths are open for some reason. I think it’s that toy companies just can’t ever get the teeth to look natural. Same problem with the recently released Safari Shunosaurus. Both otherwise great models that would’ve been better if they’d kept their mouths shut.