Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy
This review is of a toy I distinctly remember seeing in a store and asking my mom to buy some time in the early 1990s’; it looked like a big, bad killer dinosaur, much fiercer than the others on the shelf.
Once again, I venture into the world of blind bag dinos to see if they are worth the hunt. This time, I am looking at one of the sauropods of the line, Camarasaurus. Being some of the largest animals to have ever existed, it’s only natural a few would be put in.
So before we get to the review I would first like to offer an apology, the specimen I have of this toy has really been through the ringer, it’s in dreadful shape. It’s covered in paint rub-offs and is cracking along most of the limbs and tail.
When designing a figure, it is a chance for a designer to be creative, come up with new ideas of what they could have looked like, using the fossil evidence and their imagination. Or you could simply plagiarise, which seems to often be Geoworld’s choice.
Although these figures might fall short of Dinotales’ best, they are still delightful and unique representations of the famous Jurassic pliosaur.
Dinotales (in Chocolosaurs) were something of a hidden gem for me; despite an extensive production series, the Japanese capsule toys haven’t ever been marketed much at all overseas, at least that I know of.
With a lot of companies that produce prehistoric animal figures, you can often get a lot of repetition of familiar species, or focus on large dinosaurs. Very few decide to make figures of the less familiar or smaller creatures that shared their world with the terrible lizards.
Once more, we head to the DinoWaurs Survival line, this time investigating a member of the Stegosaurs added to the line, and the first figure of this line I bought: Kentrosaurus. From the Kimmeridgian of Tanzania, this Stegosaur is often thought of as primitive, but recent studies suggest it is more derived and closer related to Stegosaurus itself.
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
The Legacy Collection line is one of the most controversial assortments of the Mattel Jurassic World toy line, what with having very poor distribution worldwide except for the most part in the US, and only at Target stores due to it being a retailer exclusive (exceptions being the Spinosaurus, etc).
Once again, I am going to dive into the world of blind bag dinosaur figures, this time with a Theropod from the Jurassic of the Morrison Formation: Ceratosaurus. This meat eater was famed for its distinctive nasal horn, which gave images of battling the other Theropods (and indeed, other Ceratosaurs), though is now considered to be more for display than headbutting.
The latest Allosaurus toy courtesy of Safari ltd has landed; is it the definitive Allosaur of the 2010s we’ve all been waiting for?
Ever since Charles R. Knight first depicted it in painting, and Marcel Delgado and Willis O’Brien brought it to life in cinema, Allosaurus has been a mainstay in dinosaur media – second only to Tyrannosaurus as the big predatory dinosaur for decades.
A lot of ornithischian dinosaurs lacked teeth in the front of the mouth, having only cheek teeth that ground up food, and often a beak for clipping vegetation. The family Heterodontosauridae (“different-toothed lizards”) was unusual among ornithischians in having three different kinds of teeth in different parts of the mouth.
Described by O. C. Marsh in 1879, Ceolurus is known only from a single skeleton found within the Morrison formation. This benign little theropod dates back to the late Jurassic where it rubbed shoulders with the likes of Allosaurus, Stegososaurus, and Brachiosaurus.
