Leyster's Collection (updated 13/09/24)

[ceratopsian]

I always patronise my "local firm", Everything Dinosaur - their service is excellent and I like to give them my custom to reciprocate.  So it's just a question of waiting till their shipment arrives - we know it's on its way.  My pleasure will be just as great when I finally have it!

@ceratopsian Aw that's a pity. I hope it'll reach you soon!

[Halichoeres]

It's pretty close to the average scale for PNSO figures, which is nice. Great looking figure. Like ceratopsian, I'm waiting for a retailer close to me to have it in hand (Dan's doesn't count, since he just has things shipped from China to his customers anyway).

[Leyster]

@ceratopsian that's pretty nice, I also saw that ED has good prices (if you live in UK, I mean...)

@Halichoeres yes it looks like that many of the models PNSO advertise as 1:35 are consistently 1:31 or 1:32.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Lovely acquisitions and write up as usual. Count me to the list of people eagerly waiting for Everything Dinosaur to get in that gorgeous Deinocheirus. The Tarbosaurus is also about 1:31 scale I think so they scale pretty much perfectly.

[Leyster]

@Gothmog the Baryonyx yes, the Tarbosaurus is in the same scale.


Binomial name: Psychopyge cf. elegans? (Termier & Termier, 1950)
Classification: Trilobita->Phacopida->Phacopina->Acastoidea->Acastidae->Asteropyginae
Time: Emsian (Early Devonian)
Formation: Timrhanrhart Formation, Hamar Laghdad Formation (present-day Morocco); Tindouf Basin (present-day Algeria)
Manifacturer and date of release: Kaiyodo, 2001
Sculptor: Katsuo Taguma
Scale: 1:3 for a large specimen

[Halichoeres]

Kaiyodo trilobites are the best trilobites.

[Concavenator]

Congrats on the Deinocheirus, a nice change from the usual groups PNSO have focused on. I wonder if its appearance on Prehistoric Planet had any effect on that decision... 

[Leyster]

Perhaps, but it's fame grew since the discovery of more complete remains, so it might be a coincidence.

@Halichoeres I agree!

[Leyster]

Binomial name: Utahraptor ostrommaysi Kirkland, Gaston & Burge, 1993
Classification: Dinosauria->Theropoda->Neotheropoda->Averostra->Tetanurae->Coelurosauria->Tyrannoraptora->Maniraptoromorpha->Neocoelurosauria->Maniraptoriformes->Maniraptora->Pennaraptora->Paraves->Eumaniraptora->Deinonychosauria->Dromaeosauridae->Eudromaeosauria
Time: Valanginian-Hauterivian (early Cretaceous)
Formation: Yellow Cat Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation (present day USA)
Manifacturer and date of release: Battat, 1998
Sculptor: Greg Wenzel
Scale: 1:30 for BYU 15465 (largest specimen), 1:25 for CEU 184v.260 (paratype)

Almost 25 years later, we still have to see a better Utahraptor. Amazing how Greg Wenzel managed to (by luck or information excanged with paleontologists) restore it closer to the modern understanding of this animal rather than the oversized Deinonychus it was represented then.

[Halichoeres]

Definitely the prettiest Utahraptor that's been released, although in my own collection I have the CollectA just because it has feathers. The CollectA is sort of a homely sculpt, though.

[Concavenator]

Well, there's the upcoming BotM/Cyberzoic Utahraptor, which (for the time being) will easily be the best (and it reflects the new proportions). Though worth mentioning is the Utahraptor block (the Utahraptor Project), which may give us more insight on this animal.

[Halichoeres]

True, I was just referring to the ones currently available. I plan to go for one of the Creative Beast Utahraptor figures once they're released.

[Leyster]

@Halichoeres the BOTM one is nice and quite tempting, but I tend to dislike articolated figures. Muscles moves in a way that can't be replicated by an articulation. Even the jaw articulation everyone has nowadays is a simplification on jaw muscolature, which should bulge and contract as the jaw moves (a good example here). Also, I'd rather get the Achillobator (which is basically a different model of Utahraptor at this point), personally, since I think the bird of prey Dromaeosaur analogy is a bit overplayed and might not reflect the ecology of some members of this group.

[Halichoeres]

That's fair. I also prefer non-articulated figures, but my preference for feathers will override that in this case. I also forgot about the WWD Utahraptor, which is very nice but doesn't have the dynamism of Wenzel's sculpt.

[Leyster]

@Halichoeres also the WWD one is, as mentioned before, just an oversized Deinonychus, while Wenzel's sculpt had a distinctive rectangular skull and a stockier build (which was noted in the description, but pretty much ignored in pupular art until more recently).

[Concavenator]

I tend to dislike articolated figures.

Oh I thought you were interested in BotM figures since I saw you express interest for the Yutyrannus.

Also, I didn't realize the Battat Utahraptor was that good (relative to its time), I guess its featherlessness made me look no further. Still a shame about that, and while I obviously can't complaint about a dromaeosaurid figure released in the late 90s to be feathered in the same way as current dromaeosaurid depictions, it still would have been neat if it had at least protofeathers to some extent, I think around that time there were already feathered Dromaeosauridae depictions (again, to some extent)? 

[Leyster]

I tend to dislike articolated figures.

Oh I thought you were interested in BotM figures since I saw you express interest for the Yutyrannus.

Also, I didn't realize the Battat Utahraptor was that good (relative to its time), I guess its featherlessness made me look no further. Still a shame about that, and while I obviously can't complaint about a dromaeosaurid figure released in the late 90s to be feathered in the same way as current dromaeosaurid depictions, it still would have been neat if it had at least protofeathers to some extent, I think around that time there were already feathered Dromaeosauridae depictions (again, to some extent)? 

No, you're right, I intend to get that. It's a case when being the best model of a species I'm fond of overrrides my dislike for articulation.

Considering that Dan didn't put feathers on Nanshiungosaurus in 2014, I find unlikely a '90 Utahraptor would've been feathered.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

The Battat Utahraptor,  despite the obvious is one of the better figures.
I've been trying to decide whether it as inspired by Walking with Dinosaurs and came to the conclusion that it must be.

[Leyster]

Binomial name: Pinacosaurus cf. grangeri*
Classification: Dinosauria->Ornithischia->Genasauria->Thyreophora->Ankylosauria->Ankylosauridae->Ankylosaurinae->Ankylosaurini
Time: Santonian-Campanian (Late Cretaceous)
Formation: Djadokhta Formation, Alagteeg Formation (present-day Mongolia), Bayan Mandahu Formation (present-day China)
Manifacturer and date of release: PNSO, 2021
Sculptor: somebody in the atelier of Zhao Chuang
Scale: 1:17 for AMNH 6523 (? the skull is flattened, hard to check measurements)


*currently asian ankylosaurs are a bit of a mess, with lots of undescribed specimens, chimeric restorations, and so on. Pinacosaurus as we imagine it is based on juvenile remains. The skull do not feature the big squamosal horn of P.mephistocephalus, resembling instead AMNH 6523 (holotipe of P.grangeri), which MIGHT be adult or near-adult. Body appears to be based on MPC 100/1305, which might or might nor be Pinacosaurus at all (it's the body usually attached to Saichania's skull).

This is officially my favorite PNSO model.

Also here you can read my review of the Deinocheirus.

[Halichoeres]

This is a great figure, one of PNSO's best. Naturally my favorites are mostly aquatics, but this might be my favorite dinosaur of theirs.