Kaprosuchus (DINOSAURS by Schleich)

Review and photographs by Stolpergeist, edited by Suspsy

It’s about time to look at Schleich’s 2021 releases, starting with their Kaprosuchus. The animal in question is a mahajangasuchid crocodyliform from the Late Cretaceous of Niger. The known material is restricted to the skull, so that is the part most attention has to be given when reconstructing Kaprosuchus. Anything from the neck to the tail is a matter of speculation, including the osteoderms and gait, but can be inferred from related taxa.

The sculpt of the body is in a rather elegant pose, slightly bent as the animal takes a walk. When the jaws are closed, the body forms one flowing line from snout to tail tip. The osteoderms are reasonably placed across the back and the neck is properly thick and muscular.

The entire body is covered with great scale detail, including the limbs and underside. The underside even features a cloaca. The digits have webbing between them and the digit number is also correct for a crocodyliform, something that is unfortunately not always the case in the realm of animal miniatures. The Schleich Deinosuchus had that wrong, as did the Papo gharial.

Now to the most important part: the head. The head sculpt is fantastically accurate to the actual skull, overall incredibly impressive. Not overly pronounced like Safari’s Todd Marshall-inspired model, but accurately flat like Papo’s version, but with a less exaggerated dynamic pose attached to it. The only part that doesn’t match up completely is that the teeth are large and blunt, but this is a toy that is meant to be played with by children without any injury risk, so it has to be like that and shouldn’t be an aspect of negative criticism.

The level of accuracy on the head sculpt can especially be seen from a dorsal view; the eyes are close together while the snout is broad.

The colouration is quite simple yet realistic. The body is brown with yellow patches and the underside sports white for countershading. Black spots are airbrushed on in a manner similar to a Nile crocodile and over that a dark wash has been applied. The claws are painted eggshell white and it should be noted that the number of claws on each limb is incorrect, as with crocodyliforms only the first three digits on each foot should be clawed. The number of digits themselves is correct, however. The same eggshell white shade is used for the teeth, the inside of the mouth is pink with a dark wash, and the eyes are dark yellow with slit pupils. Photos of the prototype also showed dark stripes on the face, but those aren’t present on the final product.

The Kaprosuchus is roughly 22 cm long, 5 cm wide, and 8 cm tall. The skull has a length of 4.2 cm, putting it at roughly a 1:14 scale if we consider it to match the holotype specimen. If we use the body length of the model and compare it with the 6 m size estimate from the initial description, we may have a roughly 1:30 model, but that is to be taken with a grain of salt as this might be an overestimation.

This model looks quite nice next to Schleich’s Nile crocodile and Schleich’s Postosuchus from last year and would be a recommendable addition to anyone’s non-avemetatarsalian archosaur shelf.

Overall, I can recommend the Schleich Kaprosuchus to parents and collectors alike; it is a cool figure of a rather obscure animal for any child’s toy shelf, but thanks to the sculpting detail and flowing pose, it looks beautiful on any collector’s shelf as well. My one complaint would be that the legs are a bit stiff, which could pose a hazard during play, so certainly not something for younger children, but it seems suitable for ages 10 and up. I think the sculpting detail alone will amaze your children, grandchildren, or your sibling’s children, making it the perfect gift. I know it would have blown my mind ten years ago for sure. You can get it right now wherever Schleich models are sold.