Edmontosaurus (2020)(Wild Safari by Safari Ltd.)

Edmontosaurus (AKA Anatosaurus, Anatotitan, Claosaurus, Thespius, and Trachodon) is the quintessential “duckbilled dinosaur,” the one many of us grew up seeing and reading about in books when we were kids. E. annectens is probably the more familiar of the two known species, considering that it was one of the very last non-avian dinosaurs to have existed, and that it has long been depicted as the hapless prey of Tyrannosaurus rex. The other species, E. regalis, lived during the Campanian stage of the Cretaceous, around 73 million years ago. It is known from several specimens, including this complete subadult at the Museum of Nature in Ottawa that was the very first dinosaur ever to be publicly displayed in Canada. While it closely resembled E. annectens, a particularly well-preserved specimen revealed a most intriguing and distinctive physical feature back in 2013.

Feast your eyes upon the 2020 Wild Safari Edmontosaurus! This hulking beast measures almost 9 cm tall at the hips and 27 cm long, making it the largest prehistoric toy in this year’s assortment. Which makes sense considering that the real animal grew to at least 12 metres in length and four tons in weight. It is sculpted in a quadrupedal walking stance with its head turned to the right, its right front paw in mid-step, its left hind foot extended behind it, and its stiff, heavy tail swaying slightly to the left. Unlike Safari’s previous toy, which looks rather like it’s being confronted by a predator, this individual appears to be calm and at peace.

The main colours here are dull orange and sandy yellow with very dark brown markings, dark brown claws, muddy brown for the bill, black for the nostrils and mouth, and orange for the beady but very alert-looking eyes. And then there is the bright red rounded comb atop the animal’s cranium that makes it immediately recognizable as Edmontosaurus regalis. Well, for now at least. Soft tissue rarely ever gets preserved in the fossil record, so it’s quite possible that E. annectens also possessed a similar feature. Indeed, it’s quite possible that fleshy combs and crests and wattles occurred in other hadrosaurs and ceratopsians and tyrannosaurs and dromaeosaurs and sauropods and who knows which other dinosaurs. We’ll simply never know for certain.

The rest of the head is unmistakable as an Edmontosaurus, with a long, sloping muzzle terminating in a large horny bill. Personally, I think it comes off much more like a horse than a duck. The neck is pleasingly thick, not skinny like on so many older hadrosaur restorations. The hands are sculpted with the familiar “mittens” and no claws on the single digits. Back in the fall of 2019, some leaked online images of an E. annectens specimen appeared to indicate the presence of a hoof-like structure on the hand, but there has yet to be a formal publication. In any case, sculptor Doug Watson completed work on this toy long before that time, so neither he nor Safari can possibly be faulted for any discoveries that popped up afterwards.

The Edmontosaurus‘ hind legs are huge and muscular, as is the tail. Like other hadrosaurs, it probably spent most of its time walking on all fours, but it could have reared up on its hind legs to browse or intimidate, or run away when intimidation failed. E. regalis coexisted with other hadrosaurs like Hypacrosaurus and Saurolophus, ceratopsians like Anchiceratops and Pachyrhinosaurus, ankylosaurs like Edmontonia and Euoplocephalus, ornithomimosaurs like Ornithomimus and Struthiomimus, and savage tyrannosaurs like Albertosaurus and Daspletosaurus. But unlike with E. annectens and T. rex, a mature E. regalis was considerably bigger than those tyrannosaurs, and therefore would have been a dangerous animal for them to tackle. Granted, it had no horns, spikes, or armour, but a swipe from its heavy tail would have laid out any attacker. Probably could have simply slammed its massive body into them as well, or reared up and dealt stunning blows with its front paws just like spooked horses do.

Edmontosaurus is one dinosaur for which excellent skin impressions exist, and to no great surprise, this toy reflects them very nicely indeed. Most of the skin texture consists of rounded scales, with large ones covering the neck, body, and tail, and much smaller ones on the head and limbs. Topping it off are a few thick wrinkles along the sides and on the thighs. But this brings me to what I believe is the one negative about this toy: the very noticeable seam lines running down the limbs and along a large chunk of the underbelly. Granted, seam lines are an inevitable part of the world of plastic dinosaur figures, but the ones on this Edmontosaurus strike me as particularly prominent compared to those on other recent Safari dinosaurs.

Seam lines notwithstanding, I think that this Edmontosaurus is yet another smashing success for Safari Ltd. It’s impressively big, beautifully sculpted, well-researched, and, of course, it’s a new ornithopod toy in a plastic world that’s largely dominated by theropods, ceratopsians, and thyreothorans. Highly recommended.