Smok (Deluxe Prehistoric Collection by CollectA)

As a person of Polish decent with a love for Triassic fauna I was elated to see that CollectA was producing a figure of Smok wawelski, a Triassic archosaur found near Lisowice village in Poland. And hot on the heels of their excellent Lisowicia too, another Triassic animal from the same fossil site. It was clear that this would be a must have (and review) figure for me.

Smok wawelski lived during the late Triassic and is named after the Wawel dragon of Polish folklore. With an estimated length of 16-20’ (5-6 meters), Smok is the largest Triassic or early Jurassic carnivore known from central Europe. Although there are a fair bit of remains for Smok, various parts of the skeleton share similarities with both early theropods and pseudosuchians (crocodile-line archosaurs). This makes classifying Smok as anything more specific than an archosaur difficult. So, when reconstructing this genus, you must choose between reconstructing it as a theropod or pseudosuchian, and it is clear which route CollectA took here.

When measured down the mid-line of the back the CollectA Smok comes out at being 12” (30.48cm) in length. This puts the figure at 1/20 in scale and that’s great, because that’s the scale that CollectA advertises the figure as being in. That also means that it pairs well with the CollectA Lisowicia, as it should. The figure is standing on all fours with the left forelimb gently stepping forward. The head is looking leftward, and the tail gently tapers towards the right, giving the figure an S shaped posture.

With its quadrupedal stance and healthy covering of osteoderms, the CollectA Smok has an undeniably crocodilian appearance, and I will admit that this drew me to the figure because I like pseudosuchians and I knew it would display well with my various other pseudosuchian figures by Safari and Bullyland. But should additional studies indicate that Smok is a theropod, then this figure will be practically worthless as a Smok figure. Such is the risk you take when reconstructing extinct animals of unknown affinity. That said, CollectA may have played the right hand here, as a paper is apparently in the works that confirms that Smok was indeed a pseudosuchian.

Although a quadrupedal stance would seem to make sense for a pseudosuchian it is likely that Smok, regardless of classification, was a biped. Like the pseudosuchian Postosuchus, which is now thought to have been an obligate biped. We don’t have the manus for Smok, but we do have other forelimb bones that indicate they were short when compared to the hindlimbs, making bipedalism likely. You can’t really fault CollectA for going with the quadruped pose since they already struggle with theropod stability and a bipedal pseudosuchian would add additional stability challenges. The way the figure is posed I guess you could just assume it’s only momentarily touching the ground.

Five clawed digits are present on the forelimbs of the toy, and this is like what we see on Postosuchus too. Contrary to popular belief, not all archosaurs had only 3 clawed digits on their forelimbs. Five clawed digits are present on the hindlimbs with four being weight bearing. However, trackways attributed to Smok show only 3 weight bearing digits. Those tracks could have certainly been made by a different animal, but they do come from the same fossil site.

In addition to possible trackways, it is also worth mentioning that we also have corprolites that have been attributed to Smok. These indicate that Smok was able to crush bone and fed on dicynodonts, temnospondyls, and fishes, meaning it was a generalist predator. Smok lived in the same region as the rauisuchids Polonosuchus and Teratosaurus, as well as the gigantic dicynodont, Lisowicia, and one of my favorite dinosaurs, Liliensternus.

Accuracy aside, what we do have here is another finely sculpted figure from CollectA. And there’s no debate there. The mouth is articulated with individually sculpted teeth of varying size and a tongue within the mouth. The face, torso, and limbs are adorned with fine, irregularly shaped scales, and crocodilian-like scutes and osteoderms running down the back and flanks. The belly and tail have larger, rectangular shaped scales, again reminiscent of a crocodilian.

The figure is predominantly brownish yellow, darker dorsally and paler along the underside. Black stripes run down the entirety of the figure. I like these color choices and the patterning, but I don’t particularly like the black wormy markings on the legs.

The claws are black, as are the eyes and nostrils. The teeth are white, and the inside of the mouth is pink. Also black is the area around the cloaca, it’s the classic dirty cloaca that CollectA is strangely fond of. CollectA needs to stop that, I’ve seen reptile cloaca and they’re not permanently stained like this.

Some questionable anatomical choices aside, CollectA has delivered a reasonably decent pseudosuchian styled Smok that hopefully holds up to future scientific studies. If Smok turns out to be a pseudosuchian, then this figure joins the ranks of the few coveted figures that represent this largely ignored clade that thrived during a fascinating, but also largely ignored, time in Earth’s history. If it turns out that Smok was a theropod, well I guess you’ll have a figure that has some outdated paleontological history behind it, like oh so many other prehistoric animal figures. At the very least it will make for a decent generic pseudosuchian.

Only time will tell if CollectA made the right call, and whether they did or not, this is likely to be the only Smok available for some time. The CollectA Smok is new for 2022 and retails for $15-$20 depending on where you get it.