Anomalocaris (The Great Old Sea by Takara Tomy A.R.T.S.)

4.4 (10 votes)

Review and photos by bmathison1972, edited by Suspsy

Today we are looking at Anomalocaris canadensis from the 2020 Takara Tomy A.R.T.S. set called The Great Old Sea. It is one of three figures in the set; the others being the trilobite Olenoides serratus and a coelacanth (which I presume is extant?). This is not the first review of Anomalocaris on the Dinosaur Toy Blog, not even the first by me, so I am going to forgo any lengthy discussion about the animal itself.

This Anomalocaris figure measures 9.5 cm long (not including the mouthparts), making it slightly larger than most Japanese figures. There is minimal assembly; the head (and accompanying neck flaps) and the tailpiece need to be assembled. The figure is also articulated. On each side of the body, the flaps are arranged in four sets that move slightly up and down, as if to simulate a swimming motion. I like the paint job, but it is only applied to the dorsal side (on the underside, only the mouth has any real paint detail, aside from some slight airbrushing of the tail piece).

This figure gets some things right anatomically, but makes some mistakes. First, let’s look at what it got right. The paint job on the head implies the presence of a large central sclerite between the eyes, which was a nice touch. Also, the oral cone (mouth) is also correct, showing a triradiate formation.

Now for what it gets wrong. The number of neck flaps is correct (three on each side), but the figure was designed with an outdated interpretation of the body flaps. Historically, it was believed there were 11 flaps per side (as shown in this figure), but it is now believed there should be 13 flaps on each side of the body). Not bad though, considering everything they did get right.

Overall, if you are a collector of prehistoric invertebrates, this figure is for you. If you are more selective about the representative of Anomalocaris in your collection, consider one of the figures by Kaiyodo, or possibly the mini model by Colorata.

That’s all for today! Hope you enjoyed it!

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Comments 4

  • Is there more Info on the Display/Diorama/Base? 😀 Looks selfmade. Well done. Lovely 🙂

    • It is homemade, but not by me. I bought it on the Yahoo! Japanese auctions years ago. I also have them for freshwater and a couple forest scenes. There were others, too, but it’s been a while (2004-2005 or so).

  • Not a bad figure and I really like the idea of articulated plates, something unique.

  • Not bad, but as you suggest, I’m sticking with my Kaiyodo version. I agree that the coelacanth is an extant Latimeria. You know, the only known coelacanth genus with no fossil record.

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