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.
One of the earliest known dinosaurs is Herrerasaurus, a denizen of Triassic South America more than 230 million years ago. Although it was clearly a carnivore, there has been much debate over which family of archosaurs it should be placed in. For now, it appears to be a very primitive member of the theropod clan.
The late Triassic Herrerasaurus is one of the oldest dinosaurs known from the fossil record. So old and primitive is Herrerasaurus that there is still debate about where it fits in the dinosaur family tree. At various times it has been proposed that Herrerasaurus was a basal theropod, a basal sauropodomorph, a basal saurischian, or not a dinosaur at all.
Review and photographs by Stolpergeist, edited by Suspsy
Schleich has a long history of collaborating with other companies to make exclusive figures, including small giveaways that represented company mascots, figures that were simply animals with corporation logos printed on them, or the figures available in the Schleich magazines by Blue Ocean Entertainment.
Herrerasaurus is a dinosaur very rarely represented in toy form, so I applaud CollectA’s choice to make one.
Dinosaurs weren’t the first giant plant-eaters to roam the Earth; that frontier was pioneered first among vertebrates by the dicynodonts, a group of tusked therapsids (the clade which includes modern mammals) which survived the Permian Mass Extinction and lasted to the end of the Triassic period. They ranged widely in size and distribution, from the diminutive Diictodon, to the pervasive Lystrosaurus, to giants like Lisowicia and Kannemeyeria.
The earlier dinosaurs of the Triassic are often overshadowed by their larger and more glamorous decedents. Though less flashy than later genera these were important animals in their time that paved the way and gave rise to the later dinosaurs we all know and love. That is why when a genus of dinosaur from the Triassic pops up, collectors should take notice.
Time has eventually come, for one of the most impressive CollectA figures of 2020 to hit the European continent. And fittingly, it represents a European species.
In 2006 paleontologists Jerzy Dzik, Tomasz Sulej and Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki discovered large bones in a clay pit in Poland. What was initially considered to be sauropodomorph dinosaur, was later recognized to be a massive dicynodont synapsid.
Review and images by PhilSauria, edited by Suspsy
Lufengosaurus, at least as realised by the sculptors and designers at PNSO, does not embody the typical image of a sauropod. It is no towering beast with head held aloft at the end of a long neck, standing or striding along on four long pillar-like legs, though its stablemate, the massive Huanghetitan does fit that description admirably!
