Iguanodon (Starlux)

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Review and photos by Indohyus, edited by Suspsy

As one of the first dinosaurs ever discovered and described, Iguanodon has always stayed close to the limelight in spite of the discovery of more popular dinosaurs like Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and T. rex. Over the years, many figures of this species have been made. Naturally, the first one came from Starlux, and today I will be looking at that very figure.

On to the details! At 5.0” long and 3.7” high, it is a small to medium figure, bigger than Kaiyodo figures, but smaller than most modern lines. The colour is slightly dull: very dark green and red with a brownish beige underbelly. It’s okay, but could have used a lighter tone. The pose is very unique among Iguanodon figures, with an (inaccurate) upright pose, one arm out, and sticking out its tongue, a reference to the idea proposed by Gideon Mantell that the animal had a prehensile tongue like a giraffe. Perhaps it’s grabbing food from a tree, or hailing a taxi with burnt tongue, the choice is yours.

Now for accuracy. As an older figure, this isn’t great. The upright pose is wrong and it looks more like a weird iguana-man hybrid than the actual animal. The trunk of the animal is right in terms of size and shape, despite the upright pose. The thumb spikes, the signature of the species, do seem to be missing, or just aren’t as obvious as they should be. The head is too small and lacking the keratinous ‘beak’ that Iguanodon has. The tongue is also wrong, as the skull had the bone structure that supports a more muscular, non-prehensile tongue. Considering complete specimens had long been discovered, it’s curious how this toy could be quite so wrong (aside from the upright stance, all bipedal dinos did that in the 80’s and 90’s).

This is a very out-of-date figure, but many may like this retro design. It pops up fairly regularly on French sellers, usually for fairly reasonable prices. I would give it a mild recommendation, mostly as there are a lot more figures out there. Great for collectors of retro dinos, not really for others.

I will reiterate that this is definitely more of a collector’s item, as the plastic is very fragile and won’t stand up to rough play. The figure I have here has a slightly damaged tail and the tongue has broken off after a slight fall. Though it was repaired easily with plastic glue, I wouldn’t recommend this for children to play with. Better to be put on a shelf or display to be looked at.