Dire Wolf (Bullyland)

A new pack of Dire wolves have claimed this stretch of territory just on the edge where the forest meets the open plains. The pack, numbering seven animals, is led by a young pair of Alpha male and female, both just recently left their old packs to form their own. The rest are made up of relatives of the female and a couple of solitary nomads that joined this new pack.

This new land is new to the wolves, but one thing is certain, it is rich in prey animals. The Alpha male’s sharp hearing alerts him to a sound just off to the south and sets off to investigate.The alpha female joins him on this expedition. The source of the sound soon becomes clear, it is a sound that excites the pair: the cry of an animal in deep distress. The pair howls and soon were joined by the rest of the pack.

And there it was, a fully grown America Mastodon trapped in a pool unable to get out. As the pair moves closer, the female, the more cautious of the two, holds back. Something about the smell of these black pools doesn’t feel right and makes her hesitant.The male, seeing a great opportunity for the pack, quickly finds a way to jump on top of the back of the exhausted mastodon. His confidence spreads to the rest of the pack and soon two other wolves have joined in. The alpha female knows something is not right and does not join in but stay on the edge of the pool, her sisters follows her lead and remain on the edge of the pool with her.

As the wolves starts to bite on the mastodon’s back, the pain causes the animal to instinctively try to fight back, his attempt to move and the added weight of the wolves now on top of him, shifts him sideways and he sinks further into the dark pool, taking the wolves on its back down with him.

By the time the wolves realize what just happened, it was too late, their fate is now sealed.Their desperate attempt to swim ashore now ensnares them further deeper into the black liquid that grips them, slowly pulling them down.

The alpha female desperately runs back and forth on the pools edge, unsure of what to do. The remaining wolves joins her but they are all helpless. They howl for hours in desperation as if to encourage the wolves in the pool to not give up. But it is hopeless and soon the dark pool grows quiet. The dark pool has done its job. These pools are no ordinary pools, these are the tar pits.

Dire wolf (Canis dirus) is a genus of extinct wolf and one of the most famous prehistoric mammals that once roamed North America. It is also one of the most common species, along with Smilodon, found preserved in what we know today as the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California.

As far as figures go, it never really got much attention when compared to other animals it lived alongside with, at least not recently, but a few decades ago it did attain some level of popularity. It was one of the first prehistoric mammals to show up in toy forms from pioneering brand like MPC in the 1960’s. Perhaps the reason for that is, physically, it resembles the extant gray wolf, at least superficially.

Bullyland was one of the pioneers in the early day and they produced a pretty diverse collection of prehistoric mammals in their line called Prehistoric Times, one that was only rivaled by Starlux before it. One of the figures in that set is a Dire Wolf, the subject of today’s review.

At a glance the obvious big difference between a Dire wolf and today’s Gray wolf is the size, it is larger than its extant cousin. Any other difference between the two are not easily obvious from the outside, you have to take a closer look to see these subtle differences.Like many of North America’s mega fauna, it too went extinct. Luckily for scientist, the La Brea Tar pits is rich in Dire wolf bones and we have hundreds of complete and intact fossil materials in astonishing conditions to give us a good picture of how the animal may have looked and lived.The La Brea Tar Pits preserved a rich diversity of animals, both predators and prey species alike, and showed us a picture of a landscape that would rival today’s African savanna.

The figure measure almost 4” inches long and 1.5” inches tall. It is posed in an aggressive way with all feet firmly on the ground and giving a warning snarl. It is not the best figure from the series, often suffering from uneven and sloppy paint job despite having only four simple colors: dark brown, black, orange, and white.

The figure is recognizable as a wolf and has a nice busy tail that is colored the same as the main body which is a dark brown with some rust red highlights. The legs are planted firmly on the ground and are painted black.There is nice fur detail on the body as well as the neck area that hints that this area of the neck has thicker fur.

The face is where most of the problem occurs. No doubt the biggest flaw is the sloppy paint job. The mouth is open in what looks like a snarl. The teeth are visible and this area is perhaps the worst offender when it comes to paint application. The white color on the teeth stand out so much against the darker muzzle that the sloppiness of the paint application really is distracting and makes the teeth look very oversized and out of proportion to the entire head. The head is slightly tilted to one side. The eyes are another area where it suffers from sloppy paint application as well as looking oversized. It is painted yellow with dark iris.

Overall, the figure okay, nothing spectacular, but with hardy any “official” Dire Wolf toy figures out there, it is a nice addition to a collection. And there are slight differences between it and your typical extant wolf , mostly by having the muzzle slightly shorter and boxier, so it does at least have a distinctive look. This subtle difference can be appreciated better when seen side-by-side with an extant wolf figure. 

A combination of natural events eventually caused the Dire Wolf to go extinct, along with many other megafaunas.Its disappearance left an ecological niche that its close relative, the more adaptable gray wolf, would fill to this day.

As impressive as the Bullyland collection of prehistoric mammals were, the series unfortunately, did not expand beyond the initial species. It would have been awesome if they continued it and added more species. The collection still ranks as one of my favorite and direthe most diverse and really one of the best there is despite its age. Seen all together, the entire set really looks impressive.

Sadly, the entire series got retired in the early 2000’s, then very briefly got revived sometimes in the mid-2000s before going extinct once again. This short-lived revival allowed many collectors, me included, to complete their collection and I even got multiple figures of some of them.Today, the figures are somewhat hard to find depending on the species, but the Dire Wolf is one that is still easily found in auctions when compared to others, but prices do vary.

With not many options for an official Dire Wolf figure, this is definitely a figure worth adding to any collection. It may not be the best in the lot, but like many Bullyland figures, it does have its charm. Until someone else makes a new Dire wolf figure, this is a good figure to use as a place holder.One thing worth noting is that you may find a Bullyland figure called Alaskan wolf floating around in the market that looks suspiciously like this one. Well, as it urns out, Bullyland didn’t officially retire the figure. They just dropped the Dire Wolf name and gave it a new paint job, lighter gray, and a new name in the early 2000’s! I guess they took “recycling” too literally!

That concludes this review, I hope you enjoyed it. Until the next one, Have a safe and fun Halloween! Stay safe and healthy everyone. Cheers!