Spinosaurus is one of the most popular dinosaurs in figure form. The dinotoycollector website has more than 100 entries for the genus, and collectively we’ve reviewed more than 40 here on the blog. For that reason, I’m not going to spend much time on the new Spinosaurus statue by Damtoys, instead focusing on the fish that was included with it.
Classification: Fish
Review: Paleozoic Creatures (Colorata)
5 (13 votes)
Colorata has been making boxed sets of dinosaurs for several years now, which occasionally include dinosaur contemporaries like pterosaurs or mosasaurs, but in December of 2017 they released their first boxed set of prehistoric figures featuring exclusively non-dinosaur taxa. Say hello to the Extinct Animals: Paleozoic Creatures set.
Review: Pituriaspis (Mega Squali by Diramix)
3.8 (4 votes)
We met the Italian company Diramix last year when we reviewed their Livyatan. Their rubbery, stretchy toys aren’t much to look at, but sometimes they take on some interesting species. I’m a sucker for those, so late last year when their “Mega Squali” line came out, I had to have the random prehistoric fish that they included.
Review: Prehistoric Marine Tube (CollectA)
4.9 (15 votes)
CollectA has emerged as one of the most prolific producers of dinosaur figures, with a few other Mesozoic reptiles and some mammals here and there for variety. They’ve developed a reputation for giving some obscure species the plastic treatment, but in general those species have been fairly close relatives of the old standards.
Review: Prehistoric sharks (Toob by Safari Ltd)
4.6 (15 votes)
The Dinosaur Toy Blog has been quiet in recent weeks. As for me, I’ve been distracted by my involvement in the new Animal Toy Forum, which was launched recently as a partner site to the dinotoyblog and forum. However, I’ve neglected the blog for too long and so it’s time for me to turn my attention back to prehistoric animal reviews.
Review: Pteranodon (Playmobil)
3.6 (8 votes)
From his perch atop the tree, a Pteranodon sights a fish swimming in a pond. Quickly he spreads his wings, swoops down, and snatches it in his bill!
It’s virtually unthinkable for a dinosaur toyline not to have at least one pterosaur and Playmobil has gone with that most familiar of flyers, Pteranodon.
Review: Remigolepis (Paleozoo)
4.3 (6 votes)
At first glance, the Late Devonian Gogo Reef might have looked roughly similar to a modern reef: colorful, lively, with piles of calcified stationary organisms hosting all sorts of swimming and crawling creatures. But look a little closer, and the reef isn’t made of scleractinian corals, but instead composed mostly of sponges, mats of algae, and rugose and tabulate corals.
Review: Tiktaalik (Paleozoic Pals)
4.6 (7 votes)
For those interested in paleontology and evolution beyond dinosaurs the name Tiktaalik should be a familiar one. Discovered on Ellesmere Island, Canada, and formally described in 2006, Tiktaalik is significant in broadening our understanding of how sarcopterygian fishes gave rise to land dwelling vertebrates.
Review: Tiktaalik (Paleozoo)
4.4 (10 votes)
It’s easy to think of evolution as a linear process, where one species in the fossil record gives rise to the next in an ever-improving, ever-ascending ladder. But the reality is messier. It’s more like a bush with lots of dead-end branches–any one specimen is unlikely to be our direct ancestor, but many of the transitional forms we find in the fossil record would have been, at least, pretty close relatives of our direct ancestors.
Review: Xiphactinus (Deluxe Prehistoric Models by CollectA)
4.9 (33 votes)
For collectors of prehistoric fishes 2021 has been a banner year, it saw the release of several toy fishes and two of them weren’t an O. megalodon or Dunkleosteus. Astonishing! Of course, we got those too. Papo tackled the meg. and PNSO released their own Dunkleosteus.
Review: Xiphactinus (Fauna Casts)
4 (6 votes)
Before there was Jaws, before there was The Meg, there was Xiphactinus.
Although sharks have been a constant nightmare in many pop culture’s films and stories, these fishes were not the only ones that have the reputation of being ferocious, and definitely not the largest. There were other, less known nightmarish fishes that hunted the prehistoric oceans, one of them is Xiphactinus, the subject of today’s review.
In the late Cretaceous, a vast inland sea once bisected what we know today as North and South America.
