Ouranosaurus (LGTI)

Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy

Large ornithopods without crests often look similar, with basically the same body plan, and hard to tell apart. One notable exception is Ouranosaurus, which, though named back in 1976, is still unique among ornithopods in having a tall sail formed by the neural spines of its back and tail vertebrae. At the time it was named, few other dinosaurs were known with a similar structure, Spinosaurus being the most famous, of course, and various theories were suggested for its use, including thermoregulation. Since then, it has also been proposed that the spines could have supported a hump-like structure instead of a sail, but that is not how these animals are usually portrayed even today.

This review will deal with the LGTI Ouranosaurus released in 1992, which is a pretty standard “retro” portrayal of the genus, but is notable for being sold together with a skeleton of its own species, as were the other LGTI dinosaurs. The figure is about 18 cm long and is sculpted in a bipedal tripod pose where the tail is used to prop it up, wheras all dinosaurs are usually depicted today with their tails held clear off the ground. In toys, this tripod stance is often for practical reasons rather than to make a scientific point, as it’s just more stable. The head and tail both point to the left, which is a dynamic pose, but made it a bit tough to play with.

The head is somewhat too large in relation to the body, and the figure seems too stocky overall compared to the complete skeleton mounted in Venice. It also lacks the two rounded domes on top of the head, which is another conspicuous feature of Ouranosaurus, so the head ends up looking like that of any old crestless hadrosaur. Other than these issues, the figure looks fairly accurate overall, with the curve of the sail matching that seen in photos of the skeleton pretty well. The skin looks quite loose and wrinkly across most of the body (similar skin is known from some hadrosaur mummies), but around the sail it seems to be rather tight, showing the contours of individual neural spines, yet also very deep wrinkles over the same spines, which seems kind of contradictory. Even if the neural sail didn’t support a hump or anchored muscles, as has been suggested, the skin probably wouldn’t have been this tight-fitting.

The limbs also appear to be a bit too short in relation to the body. The feet are correctly tridactyl, as ornithopod feet should be. The weight-bearing fingers are separated, whereas they would possibly have been joined into a fleshy “mitten,” also as seen in mummified hadrosaurs. The thumb claws are distinctly shaped, but blunt, and since they have the same colour as the surrounding skin, they just look like fingers. The body is mostly a brownish grey (the claws are unpainted), with light sienna on the underside and most of the face. It now seems like a missed opportunity not to make the sail brighter in colour, but it was 1992, after all. The eyes are entirely shiny black, which makes the dinosaur look a bit like an alien from the front, with its (too) large, almond-shaped eyes. The nostrils are unpainted, and are not very well indicated in the sculpt, so it looks like it has none.

The skeleton is posed basically the same as the “living” toy, but the head looks more straight ahead, and the neck and tail curve less to the left. It also looks slightly smaller overall, perhaps because it would logically have to “fit” inside the other figure, and it has the same proportional issues. Though the shapes of pretty much all the individual bones are wrong compared to photos of the skeleton (the neural spines are too wide from front to back and too closely spaced, for example), it is recognisable as that of Ouranosaurus, though for some odd reason, it lacks hands, and the lower arms are extremely short. This irked me even as a kid, but I guess those details would have been too small and hard to define for this figure.

There aren’t that many Ouranosaurus toys out there, and this is neither among the best nor the worst. While many of the other toys make it look too lanky, this is possibly the most stocky one, and combined with the big, black eyes, this makes it look rather cute and weird. The selling point would be the included skeleton, but since the figure is so old, I wonder whether the figure and the skeleton can even be bought together used anymore, and I couldn’t find many references to or photos of this toy on the web. Perhaps it is somewhat rare now? But if it comes between this and other Ouranosaurus toys, the one by Battat seems to be the most accurate one so far.