After the woolly mammoth and Smilodon, the third most famous prehistoric mammal is arguably Megatherium americanum, the original giant ground sloth of Pleistocene South America. Discovered in 1787 and named in 1796 by none other than George Cuvier himself, Megatherium was of the most popular museum draws during the 19th century–until it was muscled out of the spotlight by dinosaurs....
Aside from being the most popular and familiar prehistoric carnivoran, cats of the Smilodon genus are notable for several reasons. They’re the most recent of the “saber-toothed” cats, having only gone extinct at the end of the Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. They were also large, reaching and exceeding the size of extant big cats. One species, S. populator, was...
Now the ambush! Ademir explodes from his hiding spot in the tall grass and flings himself upon his unsuspecting quarry, which bellows in fright and pain as his claws easily puncture its skin and dig deep into its flesh. Now the coup de grace! Ademir opens his mouth to its very widest and swings his head down. But the frantic...
This is not going to be just one review of sorts. Oh no, this is going to be a mammoth review… of mammoths. Both of the 1/18 scale adults and calves, in the standard and snowy colorations. The original plan was to tackle the snowy ones which are in a set together (and was exclusive to those that backed the...
The flakes are pelting down fiercely, but one still must eat. Peetyuk is hunched over in the middle of a sea of white, doggedly digging away at the hard-packed snow with his one good tusk. He remembers all too well that day when he lost most of his other tusk, in a musth-fuelled scrap with another bull last season. Broke...
Before we begin the review, I would like to extend my gratitude towards Happy Hen Toys for sending this figure along as a review sample. Check out their large selection of animal and dinosaur figures by clicking the banner below. In 2011 my first review for the Dinosaur Toy Blog was posted, it was of the AAA woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta ...
A few days ago, the first Columbian mammoth figure was reviewed at the blog, which reminded me how much I love mammoths, so I was inspired to review my oldest mammoth toy; the Dor Mei woolly mammoth. I can’t find much info about it online, other than that it’s supposedly from 1983 and part of a line called “Galaxy Fighters...
About 1.5 million years ago, a population of steppe mammoths (Mammuthus trogontherii) entered North America from Siberia via the Bering Strait. As they migrated south into the warmer regions of the United States and Mexico, they soon gave rise to a new mammoth species, M. columbi, better known as the Columbian mammoth. It was the largest land mammal known to...
Out on the prairie, a large male jaguar has brought down a fat young camel, which will satisfy his stomach for days. But here comes Nita now, all 495 kg of her, and she’s just as hungry. As she approaches the big cat, she lets out a warning huff. The jaguar responds with an angry snarl, but Nita keeps right...
Most prehistoric proboscideans followed the same basic body plan: a big body on big legs and a big head with big ears and a big nose. Even ones with comparatively small ears and noses like Deinotherium still had them bigger than any other group of mammals. Teeth are always a surefire means of distinguishing mammoths from mastodons or gomphotheres from...
The very first Australian prehistoric mammal to be named and described (by Sir Richard Owen back in 1838), Diprotodon is by far the biggest marsupial that we know of. A mature male would have been over 4 metres long, 1.8 metres tall at the shoulders, and weighed at least 2800 kg, which is heavier than a male hippopotamus and rivalling a male...
The majority of items in my prehistoric collection are purchased online. Schleich abounds at several brick and mortar stores in my neck of the woods, but I’m not a huge consumer of their wares. Safari Ltd. products are sold at Michael’s and the local natural history museum, but the assortment is always woefully limited. As for CollectA, Eofauna, and PNSO,...
