Hailing from the Early Cretaceous of Niger, is one of my favorite theropod dinosaurs, the spinosaurid Suchomimus. Mattel released a wonderful figure of this animal earlier this year, in the short lived Jurassic World Chaos Theory line (which was like a filler line until the Rebirth toys released in the summer). It is based on one of several color variants...
Described in 2021, Ceratosuchops is an early Cretaceous spinosaur known from the UK’s Wessex Formation. It’s only known from some fragmentary bits of skull, including a nearly complete braincase, and some tail vertebrae. Despite these scant remains two toys now exist of this genus, one from CollectA and another from Mattel. Today we’re looking at Mattel’s, which I waffled back-and-forth...
Although this is not a figure our dear fellow reviewer EmperorDinobot (Luis Perez) had planned to review while he was still with us, I’d still like to dedicate this one to him, as this is the first review I’ve started up since his untimely passing on the 21st of July. Over the past few years, and shortly prior to his...
The very first illustration of Hypsilophodon that I ever laid eyes on depicted it as a very lizard-like animal perched high on a tree branch, an erroneous notion that arose back in 1912 and persisted until 1971 when it was finally debunked—although that didn’t stop children’s dinosaur books from continuing to portray Hypsilophodon as arboreal until well into the 1980s. We know now that...
Jakapil is a genus of basal thyreophoran discovered in the Candeleros Formation of Argentina and described in 2022, it is also one of the coolest dino-discoveries in recent years, although I might be biased since I have a thing for basal thyreophorans. Naturally, this dinosaur was sensationalized in the news with headlines like “Newly Discovered Dinosaur Looks Like a Cross ...
Lophostropheus is a coelophysoid theropod known from the boundary between the late Triassic and early Jurassic. It is known from a single tooth, a handful of vertebrae from the neck, back, and tail, some pelvic material, and an unidentified fragment. Such scant remains practically guaranteed a toy of Lophostropheus from Mattel, and here we are. Although Mattel makes some bizarre...
Mapusaurus is a carcharodontosaurid that lived in Argentina during the late Cretaceous and is also one of the largest theropods known. It was only slightly smaller than its close relative, Giganotosaurus, and the skeletal differences between them are minimal. Today we’re looking at Mattel’s Mapusaurus. Spoiler alert, it’s a really cool toy but a pretty bad Mapusaurus. The Mattel Mapusaurus...
Recently, Mattel has started dabbling with small-figure two packs, first with an Eoraptor vs. Stegouros pairing and then with the set we’re looking at today, Guanlong vs. Lystrosaurus. I think these two packs are a fantastic idea and hope that Mattel will produce more of them in the future. With both these sets you’re getting smaller scale toys of some...
Rauisuchus is a genus of pseudosuchian that lived in the late Triassic of what is now Brazil. It is also the latest pseudosuchian and Triassic taxa offered from Mattel, who has miraculously produced more of these animals than any other toy company I can think of. Moreso than their mega theropods, gigantic sauropods, or even many of the offerings in...
Leave it to the Jurassic World franchise to once again thrust an exceptionally fragmentary dinosaur into the limelight and give it the wrong name in the process. Becklespinax is one of many synonyms for the early Cretaceous English theropod now known as Altispinax. The paleontological history of this dinosaur is more interesting than the dinosaur itself, since all that’s known...
Even before Monolophosaurus was featured in Camp Cretaceous, Mattel was making toys of them and they started pumping them out with the first wave of Jurassic World toys in 2018. Since then, they’ve produced at least nine of them, maybe more. And they aren’t all repaints either. There are at least a few different sculpts with different gimmicks. I acquired...
There is no shortage of Pachyrhinosaurus toys. As ceratopsian toys go it is only outnumbered by Triceratops and Styracosaurus, which have been more popular for far longer than Pachyrhinosaurus. But here’s the thing, all those Pachyrhinosaurus toys represent the same species, P. lakustai, immediately recognizable thanks to three prominent horns above and behind the eyes on the midline of the...
