Albertosaurus (Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd)

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Albertosaurus was a mid-sized theropod that flourished throughout what is now North America during the Campanian era of the late Cretacious about 75 million years ago.  It can best be described as a smaller, more lightly built version of its later, more famous relative, Tyrannosaurus rex.  It coexisted with and most likely hunted other famous dinosaurs like Parasaurolophus, Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus just to name a few.

Carnegie’s rendition of this well studied tyrannosaur is one of their more likeable figures in my honest opinion mainly because this model is doing something monumental very few Carnegie models have ever managed to pull off.  It’s standing up accurately without using its tail as a third leg.  That’s right folks, no tripod pose.  Honestly I don’t know why Carnegie can’t do this for all of their bipedal dinosaur models because it works beautifully for this one.  As for the rest of it with regards to scientific accuracy, I have no complaints.  The legs are not too thin, the skull looks to be the right shape and the tail the right length.  The only two teeny tiny imperfections may be that the arms could probably afford to be a little thicker and the torso region a little longer.  However, the presence of these two imperfections could contribute to the fact that the model can balance perfectly on its own two feet so I’ll keep my complaining to a minimum.

The detail on this figure is decent but doesn’t really blow me away like some of Wild Safari’s newest models do.  It’s covered in a healthy amount of lines and wrinkles with what could be considered scales here and there.  The thing that really irks me though is the fact that the teeth on this guy seem to just meld in with the rest of the face as if it was just a skull.  This could be due to the fact that the color of the skin and the teeth are very similar.

The colors chosen for this model are rather boring safe.  It has a base color of very pale gray with a darker gray that blends on the dorsal side of the figure’s body.  The eyes are gold with black pupils and lining and the inside of the mouth and tongue are each painted their own shade of pink.  I really wish the skin on the head overall was darker though so the teeth would differentiate themselves more.  The claws and the inside of the nostrils are not painted which is also kind of annoying.

All in all, despite its lack of detail in some areas, I consider this a must have in any Carnegie collection primarily because it’s not a tripod dino.  Also this is a rare case that a tyrannosaur other than T. Rex is available in a toy form.  It should still be available anywhere that Carnegie dinosaurs are sold.

available from Safari.com (here) and Amazon.com (here)