Review and photos by GiganotosaurusFan, edited by Suspsy
At one point a long time ago back in the year 2000, in a video game called Dino Crisis 2, a T. rex would stomp out to attack the main character, Regina. But then this massive beast, 21 meters long, would come smashing through a wall and this daikaiju, this beast, this gargantuan thing, would eat the rex.
Review and photos by Zim, edited by Suspsy
June 12, 2015 was the day the Jurassic Park series was revived with a new film called Jurassic World. It features a revamped park along with many new species, including Dimorphodon, Mosasaurus, and a new hybrid, along with old favourites like Tyrannosaurus.
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
I’m really happy that Recur exists and is making toy dinosaurs. I’m a big fan of CollectA and Safari Ltd., but I realize that they are cost prohibitive to a lot of collectors, and while I enjoy cheap knockoff toys (I don’t care for the term “Chinasaur”), part of me always hesitates to give them to kids, knowing that the original toy they got the design from is probably 70 years old, and was scientifically inaccurate then.
Review by GiganotosaurusFan, edited by Suspsy
We take a different path today, not down a path of dinosaurs, but a dinosaur/robot. On September 17, 1984, lightning struck as one of the most popular children’s cartoon shows of all time debuted: The Transformers. 12 years later, a different path was taken with Beast Wars, where the Autobots became Maximals, and the Decepticons became Predacons.
Review by GiganotosaurusFan, edited by Suspsy
It was 1993.
*AAGUH!*
“It’s . . . it’s a dinosaur!”
“We have a T. rex.”
*ROARRR!*
“Life . . . uh . . . finds a way.”
“AAAAHHH!”
“Gosh darn it!”
*ROOOOOOOAARRRR!
Review and photos by Loon, edited by Suspsy
There are a lot of Triceratops figures. A lot. So when I saw that PNSO was planning to release yet another one, and at an incredibly high price, I was pretty sure I’d pass. The early photos weren’t much help either, as they made me wary of the articulated jaw (more on that later).
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
I’m still rather unclear on how DinoWaurs worked. It was distributed by One2Play, a South African organization that may or may not still exist. I was under the impression that they were simply for collecting before I started researching this review, but there seems to be a game that goes along with it.
Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy
There are still plenty of UKRD toys from the 1990s left to review, so next in line is the mid-size Parasaurolophus from 1992. Due to its distinctive crest, Parasaurolophus is probably the most familiar hadrosaur, and therefore has a lot of toys to its name.
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
Sea turtles. Seeing them majestically soar through the water with their stoic yet playful expression can inspire awe in any observer. Who doesn’t love them? Well, I suppose jellyfish don’t. And some crustaceans. And seagrass. You get it.
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
How does Kaiyodo find new animals to make toys of? Much of their Dinotales series consists of strange and obscure animals that even a seasoned paleontologist might not have come across before. Case in point: Pleurocystites, an echinoderm from the Late Ordovician.
Review by GiganotosaurusFan, photos by Dino Scream3232, edited by Suspsy
A long time ago, Edward Drinker Cope found the largest carnivore that ever existed, Tyrannosaurus rex, although he thought it was a ceratopsid, so he named it Manospondylus gigas. Eventually, however, Henry Fairfield Osborn gave it the iconic name that we know today.
Review and photographs by DrWheelieMobile, edited by Suspsy
British manufacturer Ravensden is nowadays best known for making plush toys of various extant animals, as their website states, “for the zoo, aquarium, leisure and promotional markets.” However, there was a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s when one would be hard-pressed to enter any zoo or aquarium gift shop and not find a rack containing another of their product ranges: the aptly, if unoriginally, named Inflatable Animals line.
Review and photographs by Stolpergeist, edited by Suspsy
Spinosaurus has always been an animal of mystery; the way it has been depicted over the years changes drastically with each new discovery. Just last year, we saw a huge change in its appearance with a new publication about its tail.
Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
Trying to find information about either the creator of these toys, a Chinese company named Yantai, or their American distributor, Learnplay Inc., isn’t easy. According to one of the few sources I was able to find, Yantai has been around since 2011 and their Halftoy line is just one of hundreds of designs they have made.
Review and images by PhilSauria, edited by Suspsy
If you are of a certain age then chances are that this animal was not among the species in the dinosaur books that you may have had growing up. Formal recognition came in 1995 (by Rodolfo Coria & Leonardo Salgado) with its name, Giganotosaurus, meaning “giant southern lizard.” A reference to its location in the Southern Hemisphere with remains found in Argentina at the Candeleros Formation.
