Styracosaurus (Prehistoric Scenes by Aurora)

2019 marks my fifth year as a reviewer here on the Dinosaur Toy Blog. It’s been both a wonderful adventure and a genuine pleasure to share my thoughts with all of you on various prehistoric and extinct animal products by CollectA, LEGO, Mattel, Papo, PNSO, Safari, and other companies. And this review is particularly special, because it is in fact my 200th!

You may recall that the subjects for my 99th and 100th reviews were the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex respectively. Aurora products aren’t easy to find, at least not here in Ottawa, Ontario, so I didn’t imagine I’d ever be acquiring any more of them. However, a few months ago, I decided on a whim to pop into a hobby store that had been around since I was a child. Lo and behold, I came across the Aurora Styracosaurus, on clearance no less! I knew right then and there that it would be perfect for this occasion.

The Aurora Styracosaurus, which shares the exact same body, hind limbs, and tail as the Triceratops, dates all the way back to 1972. Like many of the Aurora kits, it’s been re-released multiple times over the decades, the most recent being in 2015. The version I stumbled across is from 2007. As you can see from the image above, Revell opted to christen it Spike. Not exactly an original name, but a fitting one. Also notice that the box says S. nosehornsis as opposed to S. albertensis. Whoops!

Spike is made up from sixteen pea green pieces. Unlike with the Allosaurus and the T. rex, I made certain to paint these pieces before snapping them together. Now, one thing I may have mentioned back in those previous reviews that I’m going to repeat here now is that I am anything but an expert when it comes to painting. As such, I went with the same strategy I employed years ago and kept Spike’s colour scheme very simple. I also decided that I’d have a rainbow theme going on between my three Auroras, so I went with perinone orange acrylic as the base colour for Spike and then applied blotches of flat yellow all over the top of his head, back, and tail. The beak and horns are beige, the claws are medium grey, the teeth are white, the inside of the lower jaw is pink, the nostrils and the inside of the mouth are black, and the eyes are black with red pupils. Figured I might as well play up the demonic appearance.

And Spike is most definitely one demonic-looking dinosaur! While immediately recognizable as a Styracosaurus due to the distinctive nasal horn and frill, virtually everything about this animal is slightly to grossly off. The feet all have four clawed toes, the legs are too chunky, the neck is too short, the skull is too wide and too short, and the nasal horn is too thick. Oh, and let’s not forget that the jaws are lined with small but sharp teeth! It’s almost a shame such a savage-looking monster never really existed.

Spike measures about 33.5 cm long and almost 19 cm tall at the tips of his uppermost frill horns. This makes him quite possibly the biggest Styracosaurus figure ever made. As a hollow model, however, he’s very light and certainly not built to withstand rough play or accidental falls. Like all the Aurora kits, he is articulated, albeit not as much as the theropods. His mouth opens and his limbs and tail rotate, but I’m reluctant to move them around because it causes the paint to scratch off. Besides, the way the legs are sculpted, there’s really not a wide range of poses Spike can achieve.

The sculpting on Spike is very much in keeping with how we envisioned dinosaurs back in the 1970s’. The head is covered in large, lizard-like scales. Bumpy osteoderms form a kind of shield over the back and on the upper portions of the limbs. The tail and lower portions of the limbs have thick wrinkles similar to those found on an elephant. The underbelly is wrinkled as well. Finally, the horns have some very faint grooves to them.

This kit also comes with a two-section diorama base consisting of a flat patch of ground measuring about 26.5 cm long and 24.5 cm wide at the thick end. A few rocks, a 19 cm tall cycad tree, and a small fern complement the scene. I used tan earth for the base plate. For the cycad and the fern, I simply mixed up various paints I had lying around to create a muddy brown and two different shades of green. Spike doesn’t peg onto his base; he simply stands on it. Looks slightly too small for him. Oh, and also included is a small plaque with “Styracosaurus, 78 Million Years Ago, Cretaceous Period, Canada” printed on it. The most recent estimates for Styracosaurus are actually around 75 million years ago, but at least they got the location correct.

As with the other Aurora kits, Spike the Styracosaurus is best enjoyed as a vintage piece as opposed to comparing him with the likes of the recent CollectA and Safari renditions. He’s definitely got a great deal of character to him what with that savage mug, and will surely look impressive on anybody’s display shelf. For myself, I’m very pleased to have found him. The availability of Aurora kits seems to vary wildly depending on what part of the world you’re living in, so best of luck in tracking down this one or any others.

And thus concludes my 200th review. Once again I must extend my sincere thanks to DTB owner Dr. Adam S. Smith, my fellow reviewers, and everyone else who has enjoyed my work. Excelsior!