The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Halichoeres]

Wow, with your international network you've managed to put together a solid collection! Some of those are pretty rare in this part of the world.

Lots to catch up on!🤣
Always amused to see those JW models alongside the none ones🤣 I have seen some of those in store but never picked any up.

Yeah, they stick out like sore thumbs.

S @Strepsodus to expand on what I said before, it's really hard with Mattel because they are much more cartoony than other action figure lines, which I've never quite understood. Action figures from Marvel movies, Batman movies, TV shows like GoT, they look so much nicer than anything Mattel has ever made. Mattel is better than what came before from Hasbro, but they still look pretty bad mostly, in my opinion. Take this Genyodectes:


I would love to know how this animal uses those teeth at the corner of its mouth. I'm sure they're putting teeth on the outside of the mouth to make them easier to paint, but it gives this thing an even goofier quality than the feet alone would do (never mind the battle damage cavities).

[Concavenator]

It's funny how you don't care about the Jurassic World stuff in the slightest way yet you still get those figures simply for the taxa they are meant to represent lol. But that just goes to show how committed you are.

I imagine your shelves are begging for someone else to release another Dreadnoughtus in particular!

[SBell]

It's funny how you don't care about the Jurassic World stuff in the slightest way yet you still get those figures simply for the taxa they are meant to represent lol. But that just goes to show how committed you are.

I imagine your shelves are begging for someone else to release another Dreadnoughtus in particular!

But would another company make one as gigantic?

[Concavenator]

@SBell I don't think so, and that's why I said that.  Not to mention another version by almost anyone else would surely be much better.

[Halichoeres]

It's funny how you don't care about the Jurassic World stuff in the slightest way yet you still get those figures simply for the taxa they are meant to represent lol. But that just goes to show how committed you are.

I imagine your shelves are begging for someone else to release another Dreadnoughtus in particular!

Yes indeed, a replacement at half or even a third the size would be welcome! But in case nobody ever makes one, I would have been sorry to miss this one. And who knows, buying this might go the tiniest way toward encouraging Mattel to make other interesting animals, maybe even in a non-JW context one day.

A few Devonian animals (mostly acanthodians):


Oumcraft Diplacanthus
Scale: 1:3 - 1:4
Designer: Oammararak Suchimonsri
Released: 2022
Early to Late Devonian
A deep-bodied, tall-finned acanthodian* mostly found in mid-Devonian rocks. Its overall shape reminds me of a cardinalfish. While a bit stylized, this is a really nice rendition.

*Acanthodians are not a clade, but a paraphyletic array of scaly, spiny Paleozoic fishes that eventually gave rise to sharks. They are to sharks what dinosaurs are to birds.


Diplacanthus lived a bit later than Cephalaspis.


Oumcraft Brochoadmones
Scale: 1:4 - 1:5
Designer: Oammararak Suchimonsri
Released: 2022
Early Devonian
The acanthodian that tried to be knifefish. Considering that most acanthodians are known from fin spines and isolated scales, we will never know the true extent of their morphological diversity, but Oammararak did an excellent job representing what we do know (in large part thanks to the Palaeopedia Tumblr blog having done so years ago).


Brochoadmones lived much earlier than Bothriolepis.


Oumcraft Cheiracanthus
Scale: 1:10 - 1:12
Designer: Oammararak Suchimonsri
Released: 2022
Middle Devonian
A somewhat grumpy-looking acanthodian with moderately high spines. It probably wasn't quite this foreshortened in life, but who knows, lots of variation in this clade. Oumcraft includes this, Brochoadmones, and Parexus in the Silurian section of the game, although they are all from the Devonian, in order to balance out the game.


Cheiracanthus lived earlier than Ichthyostega.


Oumcraft Parexus
1:6 - 1:8
Designer: Oammararak Suchimonsri
Released: 2022
Early Devonian
An acanthodian with serious spines. Contemporary fossil sharks have been found with acanthodian spines lodged right through their braincase, so if these mostly smallish fishes schooled, this was a pretty good anti-predator adaptation.


Paleokhris Onychodus
Scale: 1:6- 1:8
Designer: Christopher Lenin Chávez
Released: 2022
Middle to Late Devonian
This largish sarcopterygian is the second 3d-printed model I've bought from Mr. Chávez, after his Onchopristis. It's got good proportions and detail, although there are a couple things I'd have changed. First, the characteristic fangs in the lower jaw of Onychodus were paired, alongside the joint between the left and right mandible (parasymphyseal). This shows them as right on the joint (symphyseal) like the tooth whorl of a eugeneodontid. Understandable but incorrect. The other thing I might change is the division between the two pieces of the model. I don't think it would greatly complicate the printing process to have the seam be right behind the head and pectoral girdle instead of halfway down the trunk. The cleithrum and opercular bones could hide most of the seam, and a builder/customer would only have to worry about retexturing the region right behind the occipital. With this division, I'll have to match the scalation all the way around the animal's girth. Maybe having the whole trunk on a single print would have been too large for the printer he has, but I think this will be a lot of work.


Chávez included this print of the skull, which looks great, but has the same single whorl of fangs. It's easy to chide artists for making this kind of mistake, the kind of mistake that arises from only have lateral views of an organism. But it can be really hard to get another view when the papers that they occur in are locked behind $40/article paywalls by profiteers like Elsevier.


This image spans more than 30 million years. We're talking animals separated from each other by as much time as separates us from Paraceratherium.



StarAce Toys/X-Plus unidentified acanthodian, cf. Climatius
Scale: nominally 1:20
Sculptor: Kaibutsuya
Released: 2022
Sean Cooper's Dunkleosteus model kit was released this year as a finished model with a diorama base sculpted by Kaibutsuya, who I gather is responsible for a lot of the pop culture offerings by Star Ace as well. There is nothing on the box, on the instructions, or on the base itself to indicate exactly what Kaibutsuya had in mind, but it most strongly resembles Climatius, which went extinct tens of millions of years before Dunkleosteus appeared. It was also a small animal; this representation would be about 1:2 scale rather than 1:20. These fish could represent something like Nostolepis, a likely relative of Climatius from the Late Devonian of Colombia. It's only known from scales, so we don't know how large it could have been. The larger acanthodians, like Xylacanthus, belonged to a different group and probably didn't look much like this.

The diorama base features some other critters:


An unspecified trilobite and what looks like a rugose coral. The trilobite, if it's meant to be 1:20, would be very large, among the largest on record. The really big trilobites were mostly Ordovician (with a few in the Cambrian). Maybe something like the Early Devonian Burmeisteria is kind of close, although as far as I know it did not occur anywhere near Dunkleosteus in time or space.


An unspecified planispiral cephalopod; judging from the operculum, maybe it's intended as a nautiloid. You might notice they only bothered to paint eyes on the fish.


It's a pretty nice composition, but it isn't a terribly good representation of the ecology of Dunkleosteus. If Star Toys can make these a little more cohesive, this line could be the spiritual successor to the Sideshow Dinosauria line. That would be welcome, since before Sideshow started distributing these, it just sold movie memorabilia and the risible DamToys statues. For now, given that these elements don't fit together in terms of scale, time, or environment, it's hard for me to figure out how to use this on my shelves, and I might just end up selling it.


Then again, at least from a scale standpoint it kind of works as a base for my Paleozoo Remigolepis, if we ignore that it's a freshwater animal while the rest of these are marine.

[Leyster]

Maybe Dunkleosteus itself is not a large individual? An abstract from this year SVP (Engelman's one) seriously downsized it. Of course it would not have the Star Ace model proportions.

Anyway, a really informative read on paleozoic lifeforms, as usual!

[Halichoeres]

I haven't heard anything more about photo lighting, so I assume no news is good news on that front. Reference list on page 1 will be updated in a moment.

Maybe Dunkleosteus itself is not a large individual? An abstract from this year SVP (Engelman's one) seriously downsized it. Of course it would not have the Star Ace model proportions.

Anyway, a really informative read on paleozoic lifeforms, as usual!

Thanks!

As for the Dunk, I didn't actually measure it, but Cooper produced it as a 1:20 kit originally. From measurements I've taken on other figures against the largest known inferognathal (lower jaw plate), I think 1:20 is about right, regardless of how long the rest of the body is. I saw that SVP abstract on Twitter, and I'll be interested to see their argument in full when they publish it. Of course, their analysis wouldn't change the size of inferognathals, just the proportions of the squishy bits behind. The 2017 ecomorphology paper on Dunkleosteus already made the old 8- or 10-meter estimates for total length pretty implausible. If the Dunk in this diorama represented even a half-full-size individual, all these accessory animals would be merely 5× too large instead of 10× too large. Honestly it would work better as Coccosteus, except of course for all the bones being shaped like Dunkleosteus bones.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Not a big fan of the Mattel Jurassic Park toys but bless the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Dreadnoughtus is immense. Small children could probably ride it.
Nice to have a look at all those Devonian fishes too, don't think I I've heard of any of those ones.

[Halichoeres]

Not a big fan of the Mattel Jurassic Park toys but bless the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Dreadnoughtus is immense. Small children could probably ride it.
Nice to have a look at all those Devonian fishes too, don't think I I've heard of any of those ones.

Yeah, it's pet-sized rather than toy-sized. Happily, I've finally been able to get the neck to budge, although it does so noisily. My own joints are a bit noisy from many years of manual labor, but this is even louder than me getting out of bed.

Truth is, some of these fishes I hadn't heard of prior to this game, either, but Brochoadmones I knew about, and I even drew it once:


I considered asking Oammararak to match this color scheme, but it would have been a bit too elaborate for the tiny size of the figure.

[Loon]

Looking at your post about about Mattel's style, I'm inclined to agree. I wonder why so many of the figures they make that aren't based on the models used in the movies look so goofy. I recall one of the original designers did state that her background was in animation and maybe her style snuck into the line, but I'm not quite sure. It does seem to be changing, though, as a few of the newer reveals look a bit more proportional.

[Halichoeres]

Looking at your post about about Mattel's style, I'm inclined to agree. I wonder why so many of the figures they make that aren't based on the models used in the movies look so goofy. I recall one of the original designers did state that her background was in animation and maybe her style snuck into the line, but I'm not quite sure. It does seem to be changing, though, as a few of the newer reveals look a bit more proportional.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that background. If newer ones are a bit more proportional, that would be a welcome change in my book.

And now, some jawless fishes of the Silurian! All of these are somewhere on the gnathostome stem, meaning that they share a common ancestor more recently with us than with a lamprey. They're also all by Oumcraft (Oammararak) for the Life... game, with designs inspired by the "Palaeopedia" Tumblr blog.


Thelodus
Scale: 1:5 - 1:25
The namesake for the diverse group of jawless weirdoes called Thelodonti, Thelodus ("teat scale," from the shape of its scales) was mostly pretty small, judging from whole-body fossils. But there have been some very large scales found that, if proportional, would suggest an animal a meter long. Like other thelodonts, it had some ventrolateral folds for stability, but otherwise no paired fins. It was probably a filter feeder, as it lacked jaws. And it was covered all over with these litle scales that were histologically much like teeth--thelodonts are one line of evidence suggesting that teeth did not originate as oral food-processing structures, but as flexible armor for these little guys.


With Colorata's Acutiramus.


Ateleaspis
Scale: 1:6
The only one of these that isn't a thelodont, Ateleaspis ("telos" means "end," and I think the name in context means something like "unfinished shield," but someone who is better with Greek should feel free to correct me!) was one of the earliest known fish with paired fins. That innovation, and some details of its nervous system, suggest a closer relationship with us gnathostomes. I already have the Artificial Animals version, but they're at such different scales that I think I'll keep both.


Loganellia
Scale: 1:5
An interesting thelodont that had little toothlike structures both on its skin and in its pharynx (throat), the latter of which probably helped it shred food and might well have been the precursors to our own teeth. Many modern fishes, like goldfish, only have teeth in the throat, even though they come from toothy-mouthed ancestors. Tooth evolution is so convoluted, which I guess is unsurprising for a feature with such an important but variable job.


This Groenlandaspis had basically no friends before the Life game, but now its shelf is teeming with weird little Paleozoic critters.


Phlebolepis
Scale: 1:2
An odd name, which as far as I can tell means "vein scale," presumably from the finely branched tubules of dentin that are visible on each toothlike denticle. I think it's appropriate that Oammararak painted it a nice deep red. Like the others, the overall impression I get from the body shape is that of a minuscule whale shark.


A couple of Silurian records of Hemicyclaspis exist, so there's an off chance these two could have met.

[Faelrin]

I got a couple of those, Thelodus and Phlebolepis at least. I got them because I just think they're neat and cute honestly, but nice to be able to learn a bit more about them as well.

Also had no idea goldfish had throat teeth. That's interesting to say the least.

[Flaffy]

Those fish are easily some of my favourite from the line. They're just so adorable!
And the fact that O @Oammararak took the time to completely remodel them to make them more accurate is worthy of praise.

[Gwangi]

I'm really diggin' the Oumcraft fishes. I appreciate the invertebrates too but I've always been more of a fish guy and these are wonderful.

The Ateleaspis has always reminded me of a plecostomus. And the Loganellia is positively adorable, makes me think of the plush Astraspis we're getting from Paleozoic Pals.

Speaking of pharyngeal teeth, I had a pet oscar cichlid years ago and when it died I dissected it and kept its pharyngeal teeth. 

[Leyster]

Very interesting, I must admit I didn't know there were so many cool "agnates" species!

[SBell]

Very interesting, I must admit I didn't know there were so many cool "agnates" species!

Only because of the figures made by O @Oammararak

[Halichoeres]

I got a couple of those, Thelodus and Phlebolepis at least. I got them because I just think they're neat and cute honestly, but nice to be able to learn a bit more about them as well.

Also had no idea goldfish had throat teeth. That's interesting to say the least.

They are cute, aren't they!

As for pharyngeal teeth, do yourself a favor and look up the ones that moray eels have.

I'm really diggin' the Oumcraft fishes. I appreciate the invertebrates too but I've always been more of a fish guy and these are wonderful.

The Ateleaspis has always reminded me of a plecostomus. And the Loganellia is positively adorable, makes me think of the plush Astraspis we're getting from Paleozoic Pals.

Speaking of pharyngeal teeth, I had a pet oscar cichlid years ago and when it died I dissected it and kept its pharyngeal teeth. 

I love inverts too but I'm also more of a fish guy than anything. If there had been no fish in this set I might not have bought it. Ateleaspis and plecos definitely have some strong similarities! Armor, mouths on the bottom, sometimes weedy little tails.

Cool that you kept the pharyngeal teeth. I've actually never seen the ones in an oscar, I'm guessing based on diet in the wild they're kind of knobbly?

Those fish are easily some of my favourite from the line. They're just so adorable!
And the fact that O @Oammararak took the time to completely remodel them to make them more accurate is worthy of praise.

Yeah, I neglected to mention that, but for a couple of minutes while I was writing this post up I thought I had photographed the wrong figure for Ateleaspis. The original model looked very different, but this one is a substantial improvement. Thanks to her for incorporating input and to you for offering some! The Kickstarter was at a busy time for me so I wasn't able to help in that respect.

Very interesting, I must admit I didn't know there were so many cool "agnates" species!

Before vertebrate jaws appeared, they had a big chunk of the Paleozoic to themselves with only arthropods able to prey on them. They did a lot of weird stuff with the fairly basic vertebrate body plan in that time!

Only because of the figures made by O @Oammararak

Yup. I think Oumcraft might be responsible for over half of the jawless fish in my collection.

[Gwangi]

I love inverts too but I'm also more of a fish guy than anything. If there had been no fish in this set I might not have bought it. Ateleaspis and plecos definitely have some strong similarities! Armor, mouths on the bottom, sometimes weedy little tails.

Cool that you kept the pharyngeal teeth. I've actually never seen the ones in an oscar, I'm guessing based on diet in the wild they're kind of knobbly?

Here ya go. One point is missing, I think I did that when removing it from the fish, but you get the idea.

[Faelrin]

Thanks for reminding me about the moray eel's. I do remember learning about that a while back. Never even crossed my mind. Still I would never imagined goldfish would have had something like that. It's like almost deceptive at face value, if you know what I mean? I'm gonna have to look into this more now, lol.

And since folks are mentioning the fish and inverts thing, I think I lean slightly more towards the inverts (particularly marine ones, including extant ones), but well I'm really a fan of both nearly equally. So much underrated cool stuff out there, which is why these figures from O @Oammararak is something I'll never stop being thankful for, especially with how many came together putting the big bucks in to just make it work.

Edit: And as far as prehistoric fishes go, I have a soft spot for ostracoderms, and placoderms, in particular. And sarcopterygians, including tetrapodomorphs like Ichthyostega, a childhood favorite since I was 11 or 12.

[Halichoeres]

Reference list on page 1 updated. I forgot to mention that the Oumcraft Thelodus replaces my old TST Advance one, which definitely saves on space.

@Gwangi Thanks for sharing that, that's very cool! A nice piercer of arthropod cuticles. Or else, the world's crunchiest tortilla chip.

@Faelrin Yeah, same here, an absolutely unparalleled glimpse into Paleozoic life. I'm really savoring the process of gradually photographing the figures and learning about the animals they represent.