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...
Last year was an exciting year for Irritator! Not only did we get two new figures by Mattel, but we also got a new study looking at the jaw articulation of Professor Challenger’s Irritating creature from Brazil! Join me, Emperor Dinobot, as we look at one of the most interesting figures Mattel has given us thus so far, barring the...
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...
When I reviewed the original Hammond Collection Velociraptor, I was pretty forgiving of it, but truth be told, it has not aged well in my eyes. While I don’t regret purchasing it, I ultimately disliked it enough not to bother with the subsequent Hammond Collection JP3 raptors that featured all the faults of their predecessor. I am now of the...
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...
Opinions about Jurassic World: Dominion and its Giganotosaurus design aside, if you wanted a decent action figure of this animal upon the film’s release, you were SOL. Mattel only released one Giganotosaurus in the mainline and although it had some cool action features it resembled the animal in the movie about as much as the movie animal resembled the real...
Review and photographs by Dilopho, edited by Suspsy Hello, DinoToyBlog readers! Back in 2018, I took a look at the then brand-new Extreme Chompin’ Tyrannosaurus rex from Mattel. Now, six years later, I return with a look at one of its now numerous variants. There have been over 20 different T. rex toys produced by Mattel in the time between,...
Now here’s a new one for the blog, and another dinosaur I had never heard of until Mattel made a toy of one… Guaibasaurus. Guaibasaurus is a genus of basal saurischian from the Late Triassic Caturrita Formation, in southern Brazil. It was described in 1999 by José Bonaparte and was classified as a basal theropod. Some recent cladistic analyses place...
