Review and photos by Ravonium, edited by Suspsy
In 2014, a group of Chinese paleontologists working in Yunnan Province discovered a near complete skeleton of Atopodentatus, a new genus (and likely, lineage) of Sauropterygia (the main group of Mesozoic marine reptiles) with an odd and somewhat creepy skull unlike that of any other known vertebrate.
The Middle Triassic began a mere five million years after the end-Permian extinction. On land, forests had finally staggered back from the destruction. Insects, mammal relatives, and sauropsids started to diversify into new–or sometimes rediscovered–morphologies. In the oceans, ray-finned fishes and coelacanths thrived, and some sauropsids returned to the sea.
CollectA has long been at the forefront of producing obscure toys of prehistoric animals but by and large they’ve all been tetrapods; four legged vertebrates and their descendants. This includes a variety of dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and mammals. But this year CollectA has raised the bar and released four prehistoric invertebrate figures: a trilobite (Redlichia rex), Orthoceras, Pleuroceras ammonite, and a belemnite.
At this point I think it’s fair to say that a new large-format pterosaur is among the highlights of CollectA’s new figure announcements. They don’t quite come every year, but they do seem to be coming more frequently. This year’s choice was one of the earliest pterosaurs, the peculiar Caviramus schesaplanensis from the Rhaetian (Late Triassic) of what would become Eurasia.
The first specimen of Caviramus was only a broken lower jaw which showed evidence of heavy teeth and an unusually low joint.
“Today we shall be embarking on an exciting and educational journey through the amazing world of Lego dinosaurs.
This dinosaur is one of my absolute favorites in the collection. The Coelophysis by Kaiyodo is special in several ways. First, there are only a few figures from the Triassic–the dawn of the dinosaurs. Second, there are also only a few models of small dinosaurs in a scale that matches the large models, nearly 1:30.
Time has come to introduce you to another gorgeous (and gory) model by our forum member MIXVS MINIMAX, the all time favorite Triassic theropod Coelophysis. As with all of the models in this line, the figures are scaled to 1:72, rendering this comparably small dinosaur a tiny gem that could fit onto a stamp.
Before the rise of crocodillians, the water ways were filled with a different kind of predator: giant amphibians. Though they were out competed by crocodillians and the only giant amphibian left is the Japanese Giant Salamander, they have left evidence of the greatness they once had. There aren’t many figures of giant ancient amphibian, though Yowie clearly tried to alter this.
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
Being a heavy collector of the Mattel Jurassic World line, it’s not often I give attention to their fantastic line of minis despite having collected a good portion of them ever since the line’s launch in 2018. In fact, this is probably my first review of these particular types of figures.
