As a person of Polish decent with a love for Triassic fauna I was elated to see that CollectA was producing a figure of Smok wawelski, a Triassic archosaur found near Lisowice village in Poland. And hot on the heels of their excellent Lisowicia too, another Triassic animal from the same fossil site.
Age: Triassic
Review: Tanystropheus (Jurassic World: Fierce Force by Mattel)
3 (17 votes)
Review and photos by EmperorDinobot, edited by Suspsy
I, Emperor Dinobot, was not very surprised to hear that Mattel would make a Tanystropheus figure. They had already done genera such as Scutosaurus and Postosuchus, along with numerous other non-dinosaur figures.
Review: Nothosaurus (Schleich)
1.3 (70 votes)
Guest starring Libraraptor
Indohyus: Hello and welcome to this review! When discussing reviewing this figure, the talk led to the idea of having multiple reviewers giving their opinions on it (for reasons you will see later). So joining me for this review, we have reviewer and Forum legend Libraraptor!
Review: Shringasaurus (Jurassic World Dino Escape Wild Pack by Mattel)
3 (21 votes)
For many years, the Triassic period has been the most overlooked part of the Mesozoic in toy form, usually Coelophysis or Postosuchus. More recently, however, more and more species are coming to the forefront and being made available in plastic.
Review: Z-Cardz Dinosaurs Series 1 (California Creations)
2.9 (7 votes)
A relic of toy trends from the 2000s, these cheap assembled models make for a decent little novelty item, as long as you’re delicate with them.
I’ve never been much of a “card” collector, so I’ve never followed the hobby closely, but I do recall a time in the early 2000s when 3D card models like Z-Cardz and Star Wars Pocketmodels became all the rage, at least within my own friend circles.
Review: Atopodentatus (Prehistoric Animal Models by PNSO)
4.6 (37 votes)
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.
Review: Belemnite (Prehistoric World by CollectA)
4.7 (15 votes)
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.
Review: Herrerasaurus (McDonald’s Happy Meal Exclusive by Schleich)
3.2 (9 votes)
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.
Review: Caviramus (Deluxe by CollectA)
4.8 (27 votes)
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.
Review: Nothosaurus (Imperial)
1.4 (40 votes)
Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy
Nothosaurus was a widely distributed Triassic marine reptile with about a gazillion assigned species. Though it lends its name to the wider group Nothosauridae, it is probably fair to say the genus is obscure to most people.
Review: Lisowicia (CollectA Deluxe)
5 (25 votes)
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.
Review: Postosuchus (Jurassic World Primal Attack by Mattel)
3.9 (13 votes)
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
The fauna of the Triassic period was highly diverse with many new branches of life, including those that would soon dominate the globe from the Mesozoic onwards, particularly the archosaurs. Early dinosaurs and pterosaurs themselves aside, perhaps one of the most popular of those Triassic era archosaurs is none other than Postosuchus, having been put in the spotlight thanks to the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs series in which it featured many years ago.