Euoplocephalus (AAA/Early Learning Centre)

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This small outdated ankylosaur model was sold by the Early Learning Centre in the UK in the 1990s. It doesn’t have any brand markings, but I’m reasonably confident it’s an AAA model based on the style and knowing the strong relationship the Early Learning Centre had with AAA. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know. We’ve already reviewed an AAA Euoplocephalus on the DinoToyBlog, but they are very different. So, I’ve added “Early Learning Centre” to the title of this review to differentiate them – I’m not sure which came first.

The figure is marked “EUOPLOCEPHALUS MADE IN CHINA CE”, so we can be confident of the generic identity. However, this is almost meaningless since the anatomy of this toy is a generic ankylosaur, in a style depicted for most of the 20th century. It has a roof of neat rows of flatish rectangular osteoderms along the head, back, and tail. The armour over the head is armadillo-like.

This armour plating above is flanked by short conical spines along each side. These rows are positioned quite high, so the warty skin on the sides of the ribcage and belly is exposed. The bumpy wart-like skin is typical for AAA models and is one of the features that makes me confident about the brand. The tail ends in a generic oval club, which it is swiping to the side.

The hands and feet all have four-clawed digits. So, that’s one toe too many in each foot, and one finger too few in the hands, although not every digit in the hand of Euoplocephalus had a claw.

This is a relatively small model, 11.5 cm long, but closer to 12 cm as measured along the spine. It has interesting metallic blue stripes on the armour, and the spines and toes are painted white. Otherwise it is painted light brown on what appears to be a pale creamy blue base plastic.

The history of AAA dinosaurs is poorly known. If this is indeed an AAA model it shows there’s a wide variety of figures by this brand that may not be marked as such. AAA models tend to be a notch or two above no-brand Chinasaurs, but still lack refinement and attention to detail, so they usually fail to impress. And that ends this short and sweet overview of a pleasant enough but otherwise unremarkable traditional depiction of an ankylosaur.