Controversial opinions on dinosaur toys

[Lynx]

I really can't tell if its just me but
The Safari LTD Carcharodontosaurus doesn't do a great job capturing the sheer size of the creature and honestly looks like another small therapod, I don't know why. It should look similar to the Giganotosaurus (as they were in real life) but instead looks, well, I don't know how to describe it.

I don't know what's wrong but it doesn't seem to capture the size of the creature well.

[Stegotyranno420]

When I first saw that figure, I was amazed(this was when I was in 6th grade, right before I got into collecting), but looking back I have to agree with you.
It's also a good example of an average safari figure aesthetically

[Jose S.M.]

I guess it's a combination of it's size and "simple" color scheme ( I don't really mind color schemes like that but some people here have the opinion that Safari used sand-ish yellows and browns too much). Safari didn't start making bigger theropods until 2017 with the release of the feathered Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus, so Acrocanthoaurus, Carcharodontosaurus and even Ceratosaurus look a bit out of place among other Safari large theropods.

[EmperorDinobot]

That's controversal? I thought that was universally agreed upon. Taking Dan't molds and turning them into something that has Hasbro JW quality.

It was a further affirmation of what we already knew. I was dealing with one on that day, and I grew very frustrated with it.

[SidB]

That's controversal? I thought that was universally agreed upon. Taking Dan't molds and turning them into something that has Hasbro JW quality.

It was a further affirmation of what we already knew. I was dealing with one on that day, and I grew very frustrated with it.

I share your frustration with those products @EmperorDinobot . It angers me (it really does) that Battat would treat Dan's craftsmanship with such cynicism and disrespect. I still rankle at the thought that they have his final works in their possession  (I assume) and refuse to release them . I don't agree with those who write off the Terra Battat line as a failure from the start in itself. My view is that the exclusive availability through Target alone was ill-conceived. That strategy was good from afar, but far from good, IMO.

[EmperorDinobot]

All store exclusives, chase variants, BAFs, continental exclusives are a bad idea. And to think it all started with that stupid Mr. Freeze figure, which ended up becoming as common as a frozen chiccy nuggie.


I'm something of a Batman collector myself, I would know.

 

[Bread]

Controversial take, cheeks or no cheeks on herbivores don't bother me as much as lips or no lips on therapods.

Started to really accept and love the idea of lips on therapods, but cheeks on the other hand are just "meh" to me. I don't see much of a difference.

Well, it seems that the lips is neither one thing nor the other.

In a podcast by the paleontologist Andrea Cau, he said that taking a part of the anatomy of a group of reptiles, such as lizards, to reconstruct something from another group as far away as the dinosaurs was a mistake, he said that it is most likely that they had something typical of theropods around their mouths.


Reptiles have a great variety in the anatomy of the mouth, crocodiles without lips and teeth, turtles with beaks and without teeth, lizards with lips and teeth. It is clear that theropods had something of their own and original, I opted for a ranfoteca because of the characteristics it presents and the roughness.


I think the lips are also wrong.

As someone like myself that prefers artwork and interpretations of these animals. I am still in between in this discussion. As I have said, I have come to love lips but also still appreciate and like lack of lips. But at the end of the day, I am still confused because I do like the most accurate interpretations to influence the artwork I like. Maybe this paragraph I made was confusing too?

Again, I am just confused about this topic in general now. 

[Halichoeres]

I think "cheekiness" on ornithischians was probably pretty variable. They didn't have muscular mammal cheeks but may have had membranes.

As for lips, whether what theropods had could be correctly so called, I find it really hard to believe they were just walking around with teeth exposed all the time.

[Aerosteon]

I think "cheekiness" on ornithischians was probably pretty variable. They didn't have muscular mammal cheeks but may have had membranes.

As for lips, whether what theropods had could be correctly so called, I find it really hard to believe they were just walking around with teeth exposed all the time.

In my opinion and it is only my opinion, all dinosaurs had a beak to a greater or lesser extent. The disappearance of teeth in birds is just an adaptation to be lighter to fly. You have to think that the feathers appeared before the flight, it would not surprise me if the beaks in theropods already existed and this structure made it easy for birds to remove their teeth.

The exposure of teeth could be partial, we must think that the teeth were not like those of mammals, but were constantly replaced.

[Fembrogon]

I share your frustration with those products @EmperorDinobot. It angers me (it really does) that Battat would treat Dan's craftsmanship with such cynicism and disrespect. I still rankle at the thought that they have his final works in their possession  (I assume) and refuse to release them. I don't agree with those who write off the Terra Battat line as a failure from the start in itself. My view is that the exclusive availability through Target alone was ill-conceived. That strategy was good from afar, but far from good, IMO.

The bolded part here is the worst part. I recall Dan LoRusso mentioning that Battat as a company hadn't really thought anything of their dinosaurs until Dan himself pushed to revive the line, so I could understand if the line had completely ground to a stop after his death. I could also understand if Battat released these in addition to finishing the release of LoRusso's remaining new sculpts and repaints, in an attempt to expand the line. What they did instead just felt like a slap in the face. Why release these cheap imitations and leave Dan's own models unseen? Does Battat care about the line or not?

...But I suppose we're just yelling into empty space at this point; alas.

[Sim]

In my opinion and it is only my opinion, all dinosaurs had a beak to a greater or lesser extent. The disappearance of teeth in birds is just an adaptation to be lighter to fly. You have to think that the feathers appeared before the flight, it would not surprise me if the beaks in theropods already existed and this structure made it easy for birds to remove their teeth.

The exposure of teeth could be partial, we must think that the teeth were not like those of mammals, but were constantly replaced.

As D @Dinoguy2 has explained in the past, true beaks have a correlate on the bone they cover, many theropods lack that and so should lack a beak as well.  I've read that the disappearance of teeth in birds has been shown to not be related to flight but I can't remember where I read that now.  The teeth of theropods weren't replaced often, see here for details: https://thesauropodomorphlair.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/lipped-dinosaurs-and-the-replaceable-teeth-argument/

[stargatedalek]

Oh no, this "true beaks" thing again. A hard sheathe around the outside of the mouth, functionally identical to a birds beak, is not only entirely plausible but something multiple theropods show evidence in favour of.

And before someone starts talking about how terms matter and we should use proper technicality etc. etc., we refer to pufferfish, turtles, birds, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, hadrosaurs, and parrotfish as all having beaks. So don't bother, the term is vernacular, and applicable.

[Sim]

I wonder why you didn't express yourself respectfully?  Anyway, it's true that beak is used quite broadly, too broadly in my opinion but I'm not going to argue against it.  However, that's precisely why I said "true beak", to identify the type of beak that I thought was being talked about.  Aerosteon said the beak they were referring to is the rhamphotheca, in other words the original definition of beak.  From what I've seen the other types of beaks tend to be called that informally.

You mention that multiple theropods show evidence of a hard sheathe around the mouth, but as far as I'm aware those are the ones with rhamphotheca.  My understanding is many theropods lack the support for rhamphotheca and instead have osteological correlates for lips.  Contrary to what Cau has said, lips make sense for theropods when one considers that it is the condition found in many unrelated animals: fish, amphibians, mammals and reptiles.  What doesn't make sense to me is to argue that theropods with teeth should have the same mouth covering as the living toothless members of that group.

By the way, if one does a Google search for "bird teeth flight", one can see articles on why birds most likely didn't lose teeth for flying.

[Aerosteon]

In my opinion and it is only my opinion, all dinosaurs had a beak to a greater or lesser extent. The disappearance of teeth in birds is just an adaptation to be lighter to fly. You have to think that the feathers appeared before the flight, it would not surprise me if the beaks in theropods already existed and this structure made it easy for birds to remove their teeth.

The exposure of teeth could be partial, we must think that the teeth were not like those of mammals, but were constantly replaced.

As D @Dinoguy2 has explained in the past, true beaks have a correlate on the bone they cover, many theropods lack that and so should lack a beak as well.  I've read that the disappearance of teeth in birds has been shown to not be related to flight but I can't remember where I read that now.  The teeth of theropods weren't replaced often, see here for details: https://thesauropodomorphlair.wordpress.com/2020/09/09/lipped-dinosaurs-and-the-replaceable-teeth-argument/

It is true that the disappearance of the teeth in birds is not caused by a single reason, but by several: weight loss, eating habits and what I think you are referring to @Sim,decrease the development time of the embryos inside the eggs and, as a consequence, allow an earlier birth, but all these arguments do not eliminate the existence of a beak (rhamphotheca) combined with teeth before the disappearance of the teeth, which It gives us that the beaks (ranfoteca) existed before in the dinosaurs even though they had teeth.

As the article you quote says, polyphylodonty does not imply an exhibition of teeth and neither does the opposite, Andrea Cau does not get involved in that, it is something that I have put (my opinion), since I understand that the teeth will be continuously replaceable, his exposure is not something serious. The article does not clarify if the replacement time in the teeth is naturally or due to the loss of a dental piece.

  Andrea Cau only says that we are attributing a characteristic of lizards to theropods, when that characteristic may have been something only original and characteristic of theropods.
I have already read Scott Hartman's article and I am not convinced by his argument, since the smooth surface seen in the maxillary bone of lizards with nerve foramina does not correspond 100% to what is seen in theropods, and Cau gives the example of Majungasaurus, which has a rougher maxilla. The problem with Hartman's argument is that his comparison of maxillae is only made with crocodiles and lizards, without thinking that among reptiles there are more options and that theropods have no correspondence with any current animal, the most similar are birds and ruled out due to missing teeth.





In any case, this is an open debate and it seems that the reason is not on anyone's side, my opinion in this case is on the side of Andrea Cau's hypothesis, since it is something different from what was proposed and with greater logic.

Thank you for your opinion and for arguing with links what you say.

[stargatedalek]

I wonder why you didn't express yourself respectfully?

Maybe because every other time this topic has been brought up you've been actively rude to me over it? You implied I was stupid at one point for saying beaks, lips, and teeth could coexist on the same areas of an animals jaw because I hadn't read some blog post and fully absorbed the nuances of its semantics over how "beak" is defined. That sort of repeated interaction tends to lead people to preemptively behave defensively when they see a situation repeating.

You mention that multiple theropods show evidence of a hard sheathe around the mouth, but as far as I'm aware those are the ones with rhamphotheca.  My understanding is many theropods lack the support for rhamphotheca and instead have osteological correlates for lips.  Contrary to what Cau has said, lips make sense for theropods when one considers that it is the condition found in many unrelated animals: fish, amphibians, mammals and reptiles.  What doesn't make sense to me is to argue that theropods with teeth should have the same mouth covering as the living toothless members of that group.

By "hard sheathe" I mean evidence for cornified skin or keratin coatings, which we see evidence in favour of among Tyrannosaurs and paravians respectively. Plus the sheer number of times distinctly recognizable beaks have appeared in dinosaurs, especially theropods, indicates a high likelihood of a common anatomical feature that was likely to give rise to them.

Which seems more likely, that theropods, at least ceolurosaurs, all had some sort of hardened outer mouth/face coating that was applicable as birds use beaks, or that Oviraptorosaurus, Ornithomimids, Enantiornithes (many of which seemingly developed their beaks after partially loosing teeth long after splitting from the ancestors of crown birds) and crown birds all evolved them independently? Plus there are ornithopods, pterosaurs, and silesaurs. An awful lot of related animals all developing a very similar feature despite widely disparate habitats, diets, and behaviours implies a basis for that features appearance in common anatomy.

By the way, if one does a Google search for "bird teeth flight", one can see articles on why birds most likely didn't lose teeth for flying.

An appeal to an argument I never made and do not agree with in attempt to broadly discredit anything I've said prior. This is the kind of thing that makes people jump to being defensive.

[Dilopho]

Heck, their collectible Schleichish line is superior.

What is this line you speak of?

[Sim]

I wonder why you didn't express yourself respectfully?

Maybe because every other time this topic has been brought up you've been actively rude to me over it? You implied I was stupid at one point for saying beaks, lips, and teeth could coexist on the same areas of an animals jaw because I hadn't read some blog post and fully absorbed the nuances of its semantics over how "beak" is defined. That sort of repeated interaction tends to lead people to preemptively behave defensively when they see a situation repeating.

No.  I've never been rude to you.  I'm not sure what the instance you're referring to is, could it be when Dinoguy2 and you were debating what one of his blog posts was saying about beaks and teeth?  Perhaps you're remembering something he said to you and thinking I said it?  I'm not trying to start a fight here, I'm just going off what I remember.

You mention that multiple theropods show evidence of a hard sheathe around the mouth, but as far as I'm aware those are the ones with rhamphotheca.  My understanding is many theropods lack the support for rhamphotheca and instead have osteological correlates for lips.  Contrary to what Cau has said, lips make sense for theropods when one considers that it is the condition found in many unrelated animals: fish, amphibians, mammals and reptiles.  What doesn't make sense to me is to argue that theropods with teeth should have the same mouth covering as the living toothless members of that group.

By "hard sheathe" I mean evidence for cornified skin or keratin coatings, which we see evidence in favour of among Tyrannosaurs and paravians respectively. Plus the sheer number of times distinctly recognizable beaks have appeared in dinosaurs, especially theropods, indicates a high likelihood of a common anatomical feature that was likely to give rise to them.

Which seems more likely, that theropods, at least ceolurosaurs, all had some sort of hardened outer mouth/face coating that was applicable as birds use beaks, or that Oviraptorosaurus, Ornithomimids, Enantiornithes (many of which seemingly developed their beaks after partially loosing teeth long after splitting from the ancestors of crown birds) and crown birds all evolved them independently? Plus there are ornithopods, pterosaurs, and silesaurs. An awful lot of related animals all developing a very similar feature despite widely disparate habitats, diets, and behaviours implies a basis for that features appearance in common anatomy.

Thanks for clarifying what you meant.  A keratin or cornified covering is not supported around the mouth of tyrannosauroids, dromaeosaurids, troodontids, unenlagiids and archaeopterygids.  Mark Witton explains this for tyrannosauroids here, finding that scales were around the mouth and cornified skin was over the snout: http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2018/01/did-tyrannosaurs-smile-like-crocodiles.html
It doesn't matter how often rhamphotheca appeared in reptiles since the evidence supports some groups lacking them and many groups evolving them separately.  I even seem to recall reading somewhere that beaks are easy to evolve, but I can't remember where I read this so make of it what you will.

By the way, if one does a Google search for "bird teeth flight", one can see articles on why birds most likely didn't lose teeth for flying.

An appeal to an argument I never made and do not agree with in attempt to broadly discredit anything I've said prior. This is the kind of thing that makes people jump to being defensive.

I thought it was clear that was not said to you since you never said anything about it and I said "by the way" in other words I was introducing a different topic to the response to your post.  It was for Aerosteon, who in their reply that is before your one which I'm now responding to, responded to what I said in the quote above.

[EmperorDinobot]

Heck, their collectible Schleichish line is superior.

What is this line you speak of?

They are called Adventure Force, and are only sold at Walmart. The paint and quality is not bad, and they resemble Schleich dinosaur figures.

[Halichoeres]

The Adventure Force dinosaurs are by Battat?

[EmperorDinobot]

The Adventure Force dinosaurs are by Battat?

No. They are chinasaurs made by what I think is a company called Dragon I or something that sells Mighty Megasaurs and other toys to Walmart.