Achelousaurus was a ceratopsian that lived during the Campanian stage of the late Cretacious period. It is named after the Greek river deity, Achelous who, according to myth, had his horn broken off during a fight with the famous Greek hero, Hercules. The skull of Achelousaurus has a low, flat boss (or lumpy mass of bone) on its snout that looks like the animal has had its horn broken off. All three discovered skulls of Achelousaurus look like this. Achelousaurus is a close relative of Pachyrhinosaurus and in life would have coexisted with dinosaurs such as Daspletosaurus, Maiasaura, Eouplocephalus and its fellow ceratopsian, Einiosaurus.
Collecta’s version of this interesting dinosaur is a bit of a disappointment unfortunately. If you want to look at it from a scientific accuracy point of view there is quite a bit wrong with it. First off, the head is way too small in proportion to the body and seems to be the wrong shape overall The snout should me much taller. Also, the tail is too long. Ceratopsian tails are typically rather short. In my opinion the legs are all too skinny and the front legs need to be sprawled out to the sides more with the palms facing inward not backwards (a rather new discovery so I don’t hold it against this figure, however). It has the correct number of digits but they are not of appropriate lengths. It is, however, still recognizable as Achelousaurus because the low boss on the nose and eyes accompanied by the two long horns on the frill are present.
The detail on this figure is actually pretty good. It is covered in little pebbly scales with a nice amount of wrinkles and creases as well. The only thing is it seems that the more modern reconstructions have a more crocodilian-skin look to them with wide rectangular scales on the back but again, I won’t hold it against this figure since this is also a very new idea. It’s nicely detailed none the less.
The model has a base color of sandy gold with a warmer amber colored belly and horns with dark brown toes, beak, frill lining and striped pattern on the body. The frill holes and bosses are all red and the e tongue is painted pink. Finally, like almost all CollectA dinosaurs, the eyes are orange with vertical slit pupils.
One last thing I feel a need to point out about this figure. It looks like it was chasing parked cars. By this I mean that if looked head on, the snout of this figure is totally crooked as if it were smashed resulting in a broken nose. Boo.
As a whole I would say that most people should skip on getting this figure. Not only is it inaccurate, but it’s just plain ugly. I have it because I collect ceratopsians specifically and this figure happens to be roughly in 1:40 scale. If you do feel a need to get this model it can be readily available anywhere CollectA dinosaur models are already sold.
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Personally, I love this dinosaur and also I love all the coolest dinosaur figures that i could find and collect in stores. Where I live it’s almost impossible to find dino figures so well detailed, as this. Ok, maybe it’s not the Scarlet Johannson or the Iron Man of the dinosaurs, in terms of appeal, but I think this Achelousaurus (note, ache-lou- what?? I barely could pronounce or memorize that name), even is very rare to find an Achelousaurus toy . And I am happy because I found my toy figure in this blog, searching by images of that I only knew is a “horned ceratopsian dino toy figure” in google. So, this dino is one of the greatest for me, no matter the accuracy is good or not. There are many paleontology guys there that can talk about that. I found one of the rarest dino figures in scale, and i put it in my top 10 of most difficult findings, with a miragaia and another strange dinos that I own. Thanks a lot, CollectA and another brands for make rare dinos and not only the typical TREXes and Trikes, that rock!, but of those that already exist billions of them.
i really dont think this guy is that bad,but thats probably just because i like collecta
I actually like this figure. We can’t really regard scientific accuracy with CollectA anyway. Apart from the ‘I’ve just ran into a brick wall’ look (believe me, not a pretty sight in real life [not that I’ve seen a real live Achelousaurus]) the figure looks presentable to me. Or maybe I’m just a CollectA lover.
According to Holtz’s book Einiosaurus, Styrancosaurus and Achelousaurus were indeed contemporaries that lived during the exact same time frame of 80-72MYA. All also lived in Montana, USA. Pachyrhinosaurus is listed as living 80-66MYA still would have also crossed paths with the other three during some time frame.
If you go by what the Museum of Natural History’s database says (a little iffy at times I must say but its good to get a second opinion) you have Achelousaurus at 83-70MYA, Einiosaurus at 73 MYA, Styracosaurus at 76-70MYA and Pachyrhinosaurus at 76-74MYA. Very different numbers (and probably less reliable) but still all of the dinosaurs listed overlap at some point in time.
Yeeeah, this is pretty awful, but at least the animal is getting a sculpt AT ALL. Somebody needs to do an Einiosaurus, though. BTW, I don’t think the two are contemporaneous–from what I recall, Achelousaurus is a bit younger than Einiosaurus, which itself is younger than Styracosaurus. Of course, Pachyrhinosaurus is younger than all of them.