Daspletosaurus (Haolonggood)

As Waylay bursts out from concealment, the big male champsosaur that was basking placidly on a sandbank immediately slides into the water.* But the pools in these marshlands are half a metre deep at most and Waylay simply wades in and seizes the fleeing reptile’s tail in her jaws. Her victim flails and twists and snaps its narrow jaws frantically as she drags it back onto dry land, but all to no avail. Waylay plants her foot on top of its back, releases her grip on the tail, and then chomps down decisively on the back of its neck. The champsosaur dies instantly and Waylay squats down to enjoy her first fresh meal in days . . .

A most happy thanks to Happy Hen Toys for this review sample of the “Lu Zhi Sheng” Daspletosaurus by Haolonggood (the other version being “Wu Song”)! This frightful lizard is sculpted with the left foot planted down and the right foot in the midst of being raised. The arms are bent at the elbows with the hands facing down, the head is turned slightly to the left, and the tail is also swinging to the left. Perfect as either an orambulating, hunting, or pursuing pose. Pretty stable too, thankfully. And with a height of 9.5 cm and a length of 29.5 cm, it’s one of the largest Daspletosaurus toys to date, considerably larger than the Wild Safari version and dwarfing the CollectA one. I call her Waylay.

Waylay’s base colour is a shade of medium brown with a lighter brown for her underbelly and black for her claws. Her head features dark brown over the premaxilla and maxilla regions, orange on the top of her snout and her brow ridges, bright blue eyes, and dull pink on her mandible. The inside of her mouth is dark pink with off white teeth. The back of her neck and the region over her shoulders is splashed with more dull pink and her hip region and thighs are splashed with dark brown. A mottled maroon pattern adorns her neck and shoulders. The rest of her torso is covered in the same pattern, but in very dark brown. And finally, her tail is speckled with the same shade of very dark brown. It’s a very elaborate, unique, and plausible colour scheme, and I quite like it. Mine unfortunately has a black blemish on the mouth tissue on either side, but it’s not big enough to ruin the toy for me.

Waylay, like other Haolonggood theropods, features a hinged lower jaw that opens to 30 degrees. The teeth inside her mouth are sharp and well-defined, as are her tongue and her palette. The teeth of Daspletosaurus, along with those of Tyrannosaurus rex, were used in a 2023 research study which famously concluded that theropods did indeed possess lizard-like lips that covered their teeth when their mouths were shut. Accordingly, Waylay has been sculpted with lips, although her mouth doesn’t quite close all the way shut. The regions around her mouth are covered with large scales, just like on the T. rexes from Beasts of the Mesozoic, Eofauna, and PNSO. This is also in keeping with the latest science. And of course, this wouldn’t be a proper Daspletosaurus without the signature triangular hornlets on its head. Unfortunately, Waylay’s have been placed directly above her orbits when they ought to be in front of them.

Waylay’s arms, however, are definitely correct: proportionally large for a tyrannosaurid and with non-pronated wrists, of course. Her hide has a fine small pebbled scale pattern all over, along with an ample but not overwhelming amount of wrinkles to give her an even more realistic appearance. No sculpted feathers at all, but as with the BotM T. rex, one can always pretend that they’re simply too miniscule to see at this scale. A cloaca is visible on the underside of her tail and her fingers and feet are covered in those familiar rows of scutellate scales. Interestingly, while she is bigger than the Safari Daspletosaurus, her pointed toe claws are in fact smaller. As with her teeth, this might be because Haolonggood isn’t as concerned with making their products child-friendly as Safari is.

Visible beneath Waylay’s scaly skin are massive muscles. Her neck, her shoulders, her legs, and her tail are all positively bulging, making her look like a true force to be reckoned with. Which is only fitting given that Daspletosaurus torosus, the species which I’m pretty sure this toy is intended to represent, was the largest known predatory dinosaur of its time, outsizing its contemporary Gorgosaurus. Most Daspletosaurus specimens are around 9 metres long and 2-3 tons in weight, but there’s one jumbo specimen, CMC VP 15826, AKA “Pete III,” that appears to have been 11 metres long and 5 tons in weight, which is closer to the likes of Tarbosaurus and Zhuchengtyrannus. And really, we shouldn’t be surprised by that, as yet another recent study has concluded that Daspletosaurus was indeed the ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex itself.

Now, if you’re curious as to whether I consider Waylay here to be better or inferior to the Safari Daspletosaurus that keeps getting mentioned, well, that’s a difficult question and I really don’t have a firm and decisive answer. They both represent D. torosus, they’re both beautifully sculpted, they both stand well without the need for extra support (yet), and they’re both very accurate. Waylay has those extra large scales around her mouth, but the Safari version has correctly placed hornlets.

Waylay is much bigger, of course, and to be honest, I think she scales better with the Eofauna T. rex, the PNSO Gorgosaurus, and the Safari Albertosaurus seen below, especially given the existence of “Pete III.” One can always pretend that the Safari Daspletosaurus represents D. wilsoni, which lived earlier and was ancestral to D. torosus. But one should also keep in mind that Haolonggood products are significantly pricier than Safari ones, and are really not intended for collectors under the age of 14. So no, I’m not going to say which is the better buy. It all depends on what exactly you’re looking for.

Oh, and an additional selling point is that Waylay, just like the PNSO Gorgosaurus, can be pitted against any number of ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, and hadrosaurs in your collection which hail from either the Oldman Formation of Alberta or the Judith River Formation of Montana.

Overall, the Haolonggood Daspletosaurus is a solid theropod toy, one well worth acquiring. The only real issue are the misplaced hornlets, but as with the blemishes on the mouth tissue, I’m not overly perturbed by them. Strongly recommended all the same. Hopefully Haolonggood has more tyrannosaur toys planned for the future, although personally, I’d greatly prefer it if we got the likes of Bistahieversor, Dynamoterror, and Teratophoneus as opposed to the more famous members of the dynasty, as none of those genera currently have toys at the 1/35 scale. Here’s hoping.

*Vintage paleoart by Ely Kish.