Review by Dan Liebman of Dan’s Dinosaurs
Ever since their bizarre rebirth, Safari’s growing “Wild Safari” line has seen the release of many quality dinosaur figures. The most recent addition to this line is the American archosaur Postosuchus, which featured heavily in the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs.
Classification: Reptile (other)
Review: Prehistoric crocodiles (Toob by Safari Ltd)
4.8 (17 votes)
Having recently familiarised ourselves with the prehistoric sharks ‘toob’ by Safari Ltd, let’s now pour out the contents of a different toob. This time it’s the turn of the prehistoric crocodiles. Before we begin though, be aware that strictly speaking, many of the species in this set aren’t true crocodiles, as the toob contains a taxonomic mish-mash of non-dinosaurian reptiles.
Review: Prehistoric Sea Life Toob (Safari Ltd.)
4.5 (18 votes)
Review by Cordylus, photos and figure captions by Plesiosauria
This is truely a marine reptile lover’s dream come true. For years, Nothosaurus, Metriorhynchus, Basilosaurus and the like were all hard to find and expensive (if there were any to even be found) – until now.
This is truely a marine reptile lover’s dream come true. For years, Nothosaurus, Metriorhynchus, Basilosaurus and the like were all hard to find and expensive (if there were any to even be found) – until now.
Review: Protochirotherium (Bullyland, exclusively for the Regionalmuseum Wolfhagen, Germany)
4.1 (17 votes)
Just recently I came across one of these figures which make a collector´s life so interesting. I was visiting the museum in Korbach with its great Procynosuchus exhibition when I saw this Bullyland Protochirotherium for sale in a cabinet among many other more common Bullyland figures such as their Apatosaurus or Tyrannosaurus.
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: Rutiodon (Kaiyodo)
4.7 (9 votes)
Review and photographs by Loon, edited by Suspsy.
Phytosaurs unfortunately suffer from their superficial resemblance to crocodiles in that they rarely get the level of representation that their more “charismatic” archosaur cousins enjoy. When they do show up, they are usually represented by the late Jurassic Rutiodon, the subject of this review.
Review: Scaphonyx AKA Hyperodapedon (Kid Galaxy by Xidi)
3 (8 votes)
Dinosaurs and other archosaurs were but one of a number of fascinating groups of animals that existed during the Triassic Period. Another such group consisted of the rhynchosaurs. These herbivorous reptiles had stocky, lizard-like bodies and powerful jaws that functioned much like scissors. One of the largest was Hyperodapedon, at over a metre in length.
Review: Scutosaurus (Wild Safari by Safari Ltd)
5 (21 votes)
The bear-sized pareiasaur Scutosaurus inhabited the semi-arid Late Permian landscape of Russia, likely being common on floodplains and in similar environs which would have supported in relative abundance what plant life could be found in that region 250 million years ago. Scutosaurus was an extremely robust animal reaching up to 8.5 feet in length and its skin was studded with bony scutes (hence the name, which means “shield reptile”) that would have helped to protect it from predators such as the massive Russian gorgonopsid Inostrancevia, with which Scutosaurus coexisted.
Review: Set of Dinosaurs by Linde
4.6 (8 votes)
Right to begin with, yes, three figures by Linde are already thoroughly represented on this blog, the Tyrannosaurus, Sphenacodon and Dimetrodon. But for the sake of completeness I include those three in this review aswell.
“Linde” is a brand name for a coffee surrogate produced from grain and chicory.
Review: Shringasaurus (Jurassic World Dino Escape Wild Pack by Mattel)
3 (21 votes)
For many years, the Triassic period has been the most overlooked part of the Mesozoic in toy form, usually Coelophysis or Postosuchus. More recently, however, more and more species are coming to the forefront and being made available in plastic. Even the Jurassic World toyline has jumped to this, as we see here in a recent figure of Shringasaurus, an archosauromorpha from the middle Triassic of India, a bizzare horned species that certainly caught the eye of the public.
Review: Shringasaurus (Wild Safari by Safari Ltd.)
4.9 (18 votes)
The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods featured tetrapod lineages exploring minor evolutionary variations on a handful of themes. But during the Triassic period, tetrapods evolved into all kinds of strange forms, some of which looked like slightly wrong versions of later animals. One of these is Shringasaurus, which has some features of a sauropod, a ceratopsian, and an iguana, without being particularly closely related to any of them.
Review: Sphenacodon (Linde)
3.9 (13 votes)
Photographs by Doug Watson, edited by Dinotoyblog
Here we have the Linde Sphenacodon. In May 2009, Tomhet wrote an excellent recension of Marx´ classic Sphenacodon, also writing that “the two others were almost impossible to find”. Well, almost. Austrian company Linde added plastic toys to their coffee packages.
Here we have the Linde Sphenacodon. In May 2009, Tomhet wrote an excellent recension of Marx´ classic Sphenacodon, also writing that “the two others were almost impossible to find”. Well, almost. Austrian company Linde added plastic toys to their coffee packages.