Review and photos by Lanthanotus, edited by Suspsy Greens, stems, and leaves, but no teeth, no blood, no gore . . . no wonder plants seldom provide more than background for movies or our dinosaur collections. Day of the Triffids (1962) is the classic plant horror film par excellence, where seemingly harmless plants attack and kill humans and charge to...
Thought I’d take a stab at reviewing a prehistoric plant for the first time. Let’s take a look at Williamsonia, a member of the order of Bennettitales, or cycadeoids. Bennettitales were an order of seed plants that first arose during the Triassic and then flourished all the way until the end of the Cretaceous. Not bad! The CollectA Williamsonia was...
Despite their appearance and popular designation as “Hell” or “terminator” pigs the group scientifically knows as the entelodontidae are now thought to have been more closely related to whales and hippopotamuses. Regardless of their taxonomic affinity there is no denying the superficial resemblance the entelodonts have to pigs, and one has to wonder if they had a similar temperament to...
Review and photographs by Lanthanotus, edited by Suspsy Here comes another (unfortunately retired) one of the prehistoric plants produced by Safari Ltd, the other two being reviewed here. I did not include it in the first review as my usual retailer didn’t have it in stock anymore and it took some time to find one for a reasonable price. Like...
Review and photographs by Lanthanotus, edited by Suspsy Plants and trees may not be a collector’s first choice of models to collect, and not only because there’s so few around. In general, humans feel more attracted to animals than towards plants despite the fact that we could still live well without keeping or even breeding (and feeding on) animals, but...
Arsinoitherium was a large herbivorous denizen of swamps and rainforests during the late Eocene and early Oligocene eras. Despite its resemblance to a rhinoceros, it was more closely related to elephants, hyraxes, and sirenians. Released by CollectA in 2014, this Arsinoitherium toy measures just about 18.5 cm long from the tips of its horns to the end of its tail....
Hyaenodon was an interesting predatory animal that first evolved 42 million years ago and lived from the Late Eocene through to Early Miocene. The first thing to know about them is that they are not related to hyenas. In fact, they were a creodont, a long extinct group of mammals that did not survive the Miocene. Hyaenodon’s were the...
Review and photos by Megalosaurus, edited by Plesiossuria. In 2012, CollectA released a pretty nice non-conventional toy model of a Megacerops (=‘Brontotherium’). This was good news for prehistoric mammal collectors. But in 2013, Mojö surprised us with the release of four prehistoric mammals. This review is about one of those: Mojö’s Brontotherium. [The name Brontotherium is now regarded as a...
Perhaps surprisingly for an animal that was a staple of popular books on prehistoric life for decades (and made an appearance in Walking With Beasts), models of Gastornis are a little thin on the ground. Happily, Safari have stepped forward with this very decent effort – the first toy “Diatryma” in years. It’s the perfect demonstration of how they can...
Review and photos by Nathan Morris (AKA ‘Takama’), edited by Plesiosauria. Megacerops was a large odd-toed ungulate that lived during the Late Eocene in North America. It is most commonly referred to by the synonymous name Brontotherium. Brontotherium means ‘thunder beast’, and its origins come from an old American legend that suggest that these beasts ran across the clouds, while...
Edited by Dinotoyblog Andrewsarchus is interesting in terms of its discovery, its size, its habits and its look. It is a large basal mesonychid from the Eocene Epoch that is rarely depicted by toy lines. Safari and Bullyland are the only companies that released it as a commonly available toy figure. Kaiyodo also made a small one from plastic, and...
Review and photos by Mihnea (Wildheart) Existing for approximately 26 million years, Hyaenodonts were some of the largest predators of the Late Eocene and Early Miocene epochs. Their name comes from the sharp hyena-like teeth used to tear apart possible prey. The skulls of these animals were huge and well equipped for hunting, but their brains were quite small, something...
