Dr Adam S. Smith (aka 'DinoToyBlog' here, and 'DinoToyForum' on the Dinosaur Toy Forum) is a curator and palaeontologist at the Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall, UK. Adam launched the Dinosaur Toy Blog in July 2007 and followed it up with the Dinosaur Toy Forum in January 2008, and the Animal Toy Forum in December 2012. He is particularly interested in marine reptile figures, especially plesiosaurs. Adam also runs The Plesiosaur Directory website and has published several popular articles and technical papers on fossil marine reptiles. He is a children's book author with 'The Plesiosaur's Neck' (2021) and 'The Tyrannosaur's Feathers' (2023).Top 10 Stegosaur Figures – not just Stegosaurus! As voted by the DinoToyForum community (results as per May 2025). See the full poll results and cast your own vote here: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=8380.0
Titles by Patrx. Music by DinoToyForum (Adam S. Smith)
Video showing the results of the Top 10 Ceratopsoid Figures (Excluding Triceratops) poll on the Dinosaur Toy Forum. See the full results (and vote!) in the poll here: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=8963.0
Mosasaur unboxing, Nigel Marven style. N.B. I’m not really Nigel Marven, it is just a bad impression. Let me know in the comments if you want more unboxings in this style. Originally posted to Youtube 05/03/2017
Fish Fish Fish song. They love to eat fish! Tribute to Spinosaurus and friends
I created this song for our Top 10 Spinosaurus toys video. Here is the whole track for your appreciation
Originally posted on Youtube 28/12/2016.
Love dinosaurs? Adore biscuits? Then ‘Dinosaurs and their biscuits’ is the song for you. It also provides a useful overview of all kinds of British tea time treats! But, which dinosaur are you? Please let us know in the comments! Oh, and do share, both this video and your tea time treats…
Lyrics:
Ankylosaurus ate macaroons,
Dilophosaurus ate custard creams,
Apatosaurus ate digestives,
Triceratops, jammie dodgers,
Dinosaurs and their biscuits.
Coelophysis ate jaffa cakes,
Nodosaurus, rusks,
Tyrannosaurus ate fig rolls,
Baryonyx likes hobnobs,
Dinosaurs and their biscuits.
Iguanodon was a bourbon man,
Pachycephalosaurus likes mini gems,
Diplodocus, she loves rich teas,
Euoplocephalus, choc-chip cookies,
Dinosaurs and their biscuits.
Psittacosaurus ate ginger nuts,
Hypsilophodon likes nice biscuits,
Stegosaurus ate pink wafers,
Parasaurolophus, chocolate fingers,
Dinosaurs and their biscuits.
Quetzalcoatlus ate cream teas,
Brachiosaurus, coffee creams,
Velociraptor ate shortbread,
but ammonites like gin instead,
Dinosaurs and their biscuits.
Originally posted on Youtube 27/11/2016
This video is about The Dinosaurs! Poster Collection, which was released concurrently with the Dinosaurs! magazine in the 1990s. Originally posted to Youtube 14/08/2016
Overview and review of the BBC original 1999 Walking with Dinosaurs series cute finger puppet toys: Torosaurus, Coelophysis, Ornitholestes, Leaellynasaura, and Allosaurus. Originally posted on Youtube 19/05/2016
Overviews of three large murals on display in the Paleozoological Museum of China. These huge historical artworks were painted in 1994. They were recently described by myself and others in the journal Geoconservation Research. For more information see:
Wang, Q., Wang Y. and Smith, A.S. 2024. Atmospheric Paleoart: A Case Study of the Murals in the Paleozoological Museum of China. Geoconservation Research. 7(2), 072409. https://oiccpress.com/gcr/article/view/8295/9393
There are lots of figures of the artworks in the paper but the murals are long and narrow so it’s difficult to appreciate them as a whole. That’s why I created this video to help show them off.
This small outdated ankylosaur model was sold by the Early Learning Centre in the UK in the 1990s. It doesn’t have any brand markings, but I’m reasonably confident it’s an AAA model based on the style and knowing the strong relationship the Early Learning Centre had with AAA.
I have a doozy for you today, a remarkable figure of C. corallestris, a semi-aquatic species of Compsognathus with fin-like hands. At least, that’s what palaeontologists thought when they described the type specimen in 1972. The interpretation didn’t last long though.
Sometimes in our clamour for the most spectacular, expensive, hot new dinosaur figures, we can forget there’s still plenty of joy to be found in plain, cheap, cool old dinosaur figures. And you can’t get cheaper than free! The German Margarinefiguren, or Margarine Figures, by Wagner, came free with packets of ‘butter’ (and maybe other products, I don’t know) in the 1950s.
I’m fascinated by how depictions of prehistoric animals change over time in the face of new evidence. This is the theme of my recent children’s book, The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers, which focusses on T. rex as a case study for this ‘make-over’ phenomenon.
