Atopodentatus (Prehistoric Animal Models by PNSO)

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. Among them was the earliest marine reptile thought to be herbivorous: Atopodentatus unicus.

Named in 2014, and supplemented with new skull material in 2016, Atopodentatus got the plastic treatment pretty quickly. Two resin figures from forum member Jetoar’s Paleo-Creatures line were released in 2016 and 2017. A miniature from PNSO came out in 2018, and late last year this larger rendition hit the market. I’ll say at the outset that the large version is a major improvement compared to the miniature.

The figure is a little less than 30 cm measured along the spine from snout to tail tip. That works out to about 1:10 scale, but more importantly, I get about the same result when measuring the head and neck alone, the torso alone, or the tail alone. PNSO figures sometimes have oversized heads or other proportion problems–the miniature version has a head almost three times as large as it should be–but this new Atopodentatus is very well-proportioned.

The pose is dramatic. This animal looks to be executing an abrupt 180° turn, maybe as it’s being harassed by a conspecific, or by one of the tanystropheids, pachypleurosaurs, thalattosaurs, ichthyosaurs, or predatory fishes that lived at the same place and time. (As far as I’m concerned, any of those would be welcome as companion pieces from PNSO.) The color scheme is olive green above, fading to a pale, slightly bluish green on the belly. The top and sides have irregular wavy brown stripes, a reasonable camouflage against wave-rippled sand or a bed of macroalgae. The tail has narrow fins above and below, a reasonable inference for a swimmer. The sculptor (Zhao Chuang or somebody working under his supervision) has avoided the temptation to give it the extraneous texture that afflicts some of PNSO’s other offerings.

The head is mostly a rust color with cream colored stripes and a tiny black eye.The many teeth (at least 175 in each jaw) are not all individually sculpted, but there is a serrate tooth row on top and bottom, giving a suitable impression of the tiny teeth that Atopodentatus may have used to scrape algae from rocks and other hard surfaces. The paint on my copy is neatly applied.

The limbs are the only part of the body where you see large individual scales, which makes sense for an animal that probably had to haul out on land reasonably often, to nest, to warm itself in the sun, or to escape aquatic predators. The large scales on the hands and feet would be good for traction in those cases. The proportions of the manus and pedes are good, showing webbed but distinct digits and dorsoventrally flattened claws.

For my money, this is in the top tier of the new products that PNSO started releasing in late 2020. Atopodentatus is part of the Luoping biota, which has huge untapped potential for additional figures; maybe PNSO will see fit to treat us to a few more one day. I would recommend this figure for most collectors and all but the youngest children, just an exceptional product. The only problem is finding a way to display it to best effect! You can find PNSO’s Atopodentatus at a variety of online retailers.