Review and photographs by Tallin, edited by Plesiosauria. One of the most recognisable of the sauropods, Amargasaurus cazaui has been well represented in toy form, with examples from most of the major brands. This is the second Amargasaurus that CollectA have released, this model dating back to 2012 and part of their 1:40 scale line – four years since their...
Review and photographs by Tallin, edited by Plesiosauria. One of the last and most massive of the sauropods, Alamosaurus sanjuanensis, was a colossal titanosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period. Its reign lasted right up until the K-T extinction and it lived in the same environments as Tyrannosaurus rex – it has been found all over North America. It has been...
With its wonderful knobby skull and domed cranium, Pachycephalosaurus is one of the most distinctive dinosaurs. Paleontologists are still divided over how precisely it used its noggin, although a 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin concluded that it did indeed engage in intraspecific conflict. As part of CollectA’s smaller scale line, this Pachycephalosaurus measures only 10 cm long...
History: One of the biggest Proboscideans of all time lived during the Early Miocene through to mid Pleistocene, yet it is largely forgotten by the general public. The Woolly Mammoth gets all the attention and love, with appearances in film, literature, and in toy form. The family of Deinotheriidae feels ancient as it branched away from the current extant species...
Bistahieversor was a large basal tyrannosaurid hailing from New Mexico. ‘Bistahi’ is a Navajo word that refers to the Bisti badlands where the dinosaur’s fossil remains were discovered while ‘eversor’ appropriately means ‘destroyer.’ In stark contrast to 2013’s lethargic Daspletosaurus, the 2014 CollectA Bistahieversor is sculpted in a dynamic action pose. Standing on tiptoes with its tail curled, its head...
Hypsilophodon was a tasty little morsel for vacationing and local carnivorous animals during the early Cretaceous. It is believed the Hypsilophodon would have been very fast and nimble. Along with its small size; it was probably a hard catch for the predators, un-like many of us today, Cretaceous predators probably did not like the idea of fast food. I am...
One of my favourite activities as a child was seeing the dinosaur skeletons at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario. And my favourite one was the Daspletosaurus, due to the fact that it so closely resembled Tyrannosaurus rex. Tyrannosaurs and other theropods were likely similar to modern carnivores in that they spent much of their time not hunting...
History: Ah the Triassic, a vastly important but overlooked period of time that occurred before the Jurassic. The Triassic began in the wake of the massive die off and it would take 30 million years for life to recover. Strange and magnificent beasts emerged from the dust and battled for control of Pangaea. By the late Triassic, approximately 210 million...
With a body as big as a giraffe’s and a wingspan of 10 metres or more, Quetzalcoatlus was both the largest pterosaur and the largest flying animal of all time. Next to an adult Alamosaurus, however, it would have looked like a herring gull. But even the biggest sauropods have to start out small… Traditionally, pterosaur figures have been depicted...
During the early Cretaceous in North America around 126 million years ago, a small herbivore emerges from the trees in a wooded forest lifting its head to smell the breeze that is drifting by. It ambles into the clearing on its small legs and starts to nibble some of the vegetation at the forest edge. It is small, only compared...
Weaving nimbly through the trees, the princess pursues her furry prey. With a final burst of speed, she pounces on the small mammal and crushes its squirming body with her razor-sharp teeth. As she trots back to her nest and her parents, her prey gripped tightly in her jaws, this former fledgling is unaware that she has taken a...
With their deadly jaws, great size, and powerful tails, mosasaurs were the marine equivalent of the tyrannosaurs during the Cretaceous Period. And the most fearsome mosasaur of them all was none other than Mosasaurus itself. One of CollectA’s greatest strengths is their dedication to reflecting the latest paleontological discoveries in their products. Mosasaurs were long thought to swim in an undulating...
