We met the Italian company Diramix last year when we reviewed their Livyatan. Their rubbery, stretchy toys aren’t much to look at, but sometimes they take on some interesting species. I’m a sucker for those, so late last year when their “Mega Squali” line came out, I had to have the random prehistoric fish that they included.
Age: Devonian
Review: Prehistoric Marine Tube (CollectA)
CollectA has emerged as one of the most prolific producers of dinosaur figures, with a few other Mesozoic reptiles and some mammals here and there for variety. They’ve developed a reputation for giving some obscure species the plastic treatment, but in general those species have been fairly close relatives of the old standards.
Review: Pterygotus (Dinotales series 7 by Kaiyodo)
Kaiyodo has to be one of the best prehistoric animal lines out there. At a small size, they gave us a wide spread of species from across earth history in glorious detail and beautiful paint schemes. Today’s review shows just this: Pterygotus, a Silurian Sea Scorpion, one of the largest arthropods ever known, reaching a body length of 5.7 ft.
Review: Remigolepis (Paleozoo)
At first glance, the Late Devonian Gogo Reef might have looked roughly similar to a modern reef: colorful, lively, with piles of calcified stationary organisms hosting all sorts of swimming and crawling creatures. But look a little closer, and the reef isn’t made of scleractinian corals, but instead composed mostly of sponges, mats of algae, and rugose and tabulate corals.
Review: Tiktaalik (Paleozoic Pals)
For those interested in paleontology and evolution beyond dinosaurs the name Tiktaalik should be a familiar one. Discovered on Ellesmere Island, Canada, and formally described in 2006, Tiktaalik is significant in broadening our understanding of how sarcopterygian fishes gave rise to land dwelling vertebrates.
Review: Tiktaalik (Paleozoo)
It’s easy to think of evolution as a linear process, where one species in the fossil record gives rise to the next in an ever-improving, ever-ascending ladder. But the reality is messier. It’s more like a bush with lots of dead-end branches–any one specimen is unlikely to be our direct ancestor, but many of the transitional forms we find in the fossil record would have been, at least, pretty close relatives of our direct ancestors.