Which company has the most diverse 2020 lineup?

[indohyus]

I resent that "boring shark" comment. I bet it's gonna stay CollectA.Though, they would have been absolutely unstoppable if they made a new mammal this year

I'm missing "my" mammal fix this year too.

Agreed. Was hoping for more than one this year. It's why I jumped on reviewing it so quick. Least it looks pretty good.

[Loon]

I'll forgive CollectA for their sin this year, cuz the Lisowicia and invertebrates look so damn good. But next year, I need a new mammal. Paraceratherium, please. Their old one looks like a Dr. Suess drawing.

[Ravonium]

Not that it will make much difference, but you forgot to include Medusaceratops and Zuniceratops in the Beasts Of The Mesozoic tree.

[Faelrin]

Assuming we get a Scutosaurus from Mattel this year, how much would that impact it at all (no doubt CollectA would still be in the lead all things considered)? One of the silhouettes revealed at SDCC certainly seems looks to be that, but still we have to wait and see (hopefully revealed at February NY Toy Fair).

I've already given CollectA loads of credit for all the invertebrates this year, and a few others here and there (such as Lisowicia), and nearly having a figure from each period in their lineup this year, but really they've earned it. Honestly come to think of it, most of those could also serve as spiritual successors to Bullyland's retired ones, much like their Edaphosaurus does, which is something I only realized recently when browsing through their models again.

[Halichoeres]

Haha.  In truth I think all sharks are interesting, but I think most prehistoric sharks are MORE interesting, and they're definitely all more neglected as toys.

I can think of a few prehistoric sharks that might seem even more "boring" to some people as toys than Megalodon. Squalicorax and Cretoxyrhina immediately spring to mind. Unlike Megalodon, they don't even have size going for them.

As for sharks, I personally find Squalicorax and Cretoxyrhina more interesting than megalodon due to their more complete remains and due to living in the Mesozoic.  I think Cretoxyrhina does have size going for it as well, being 8 metres long it's bigger than the great white shark.  However, I can imagine that for some people megalodon is more interesting.

I also find Squalicorax and Cretoxyrhina more interesting, partly because they're better known, and partly because they're components of an ecosystem much more different from today's than the one that Otodous/Carcharocles/whatever occupied. I know some people only like things that are the BIGGEST ______ EVAR but those people are just incorrect. (I kid, sort of)

Not that it will make much difference, but you forgot to include Medusaceratops and Zuniceratops in the Beasts Of The Mesozoic tree.

Thanks, I'm not sure how I missed those! Medusaceratops doesn't do much, but Zuniceratops is in a basal position relative to ceratopsids, so it does add some length. I also found a better reference for ceratopsian divergence times, which improves CB's score but still leaves them in last place. All of this assumes the first wave actually comes out in 2020, which is not at all certain.

Assuming we get a Scutosaurus from Mattel this year, how much would that impact it at all (no doubt CollectA would still be in the lead all things considered)? One of the silhouettes revealed at SDCC certainly seems looks to be that, but still we have to wait and see (hopefully revealed at February NY Toy Fair).

I've already given CollectA loads of credit for all the invertebrates this year, and a few others here and there (such as Lisowicia), and nearly having a figure from each period in their lineup this year, but really they've earned it. Honestly come to think of it, most of those could also serve as spiritual successors to Bullyland's retired ones, much like their Edaphosaurus does, which is something I only realized recently when browsing through their models again.

Scutosaurus would represent the only non-archosaur in the 2020 lineup, as well as being the only Permian animal, so that's a big difference, but not enough to touch CollectA, as you suspect. It might be enough to retain second place all year, though.

Actually, the Scutosaurus would be the only Permian animal from any company this year. The Cambrian and Ordovician only have one apiece, and the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous each have zero. CollectA's relative balance is one reason I'm so excited about their lineup this year.

[Stegotyranno420]

@Halichoeres mojo also has 2 new velociraptors

[Halichoeres]

@Halichoeres mojo also has 2 new velociraptors

Thanks for letting me know. I'm beginning to regret including repaints, but can't back out now! I'll adjust this when I do the year-end analysis.

[Halichoeres]

I'd kind of forgotten about this, but recently revisited the question. Does anybody have any guesses about the most taxonomically diverse product lineups before I show the answers?

[Faelrin]

My best guess is CollectA honestly. Based on the companies lineups I can remember.

[Shonisaurus]

My best guess is CollectA honestly. Based on the companies lineups I can remember.

We need prehistoric amphibians from Collecta. That is the weak part that Collecta still has is his Achilles heel, if he made a mastodonsaurus, titalik and diplocaulus I would be satisfied.

[Shonisaurus]

Duplicate deleted

[Kapitaenosavrvs]

Wow, there are so many Threads i haven't seen, but could have seen. Its sometimes hard to keep up. Great effort was put in here and i had to laugh a lot at "That boring Shark".

[Faelrin]

@Shonisaurus I absolutely agree. Same goes for other companies as well. I think even a tube would be a good way to do it.

[Shonisaurus]

@Shonisaurus I absolutely agree. Same goes for other companies as well. I think even a tube would be a good way to do it.

@Faelrin Or even moderately large figures, or rather, with an acceptable size like this year's invertebrates pravitoceras or last year's invertebrates. It would be a good option, more than a tube of miniatures, nice but as I always say, the bigger the figures, the better.

As the Walking with Beasts book says in one of its pages, great is beautiful, and I would add the uglier and weirder a creature is, the better, although for me no creature created by Mother Nature is ugly.

[Halichoeres]

Took me a long time to get around to finishing this analysis, though it didn't really take long once I sat down and did it. Huge thanks to @Faelrin for helping me to get the Mattel taxon list right; if there are still mistakes, they are surely my fault.

As predicted, CollectA comes out on top, but it was closer than I would have thought!


3,719 million years (this is slightly different from my initial measure because of slight changes in some divergence estimates--I try to keep up with this literature)

In a close second is Takara Tomy, although some of these are JW and some are Nobita's New Dinosaur (I left out the fictional "Nobitasaurus")


3,649 million years (I'm not sure why, but lately the R package I've been using has been offsetting taxon labels even when I run the exact same code that I did before--hopefully it's still intelligible)

Mattel in a distant third; huge numbers of taxa, but nearly all dinosaurs. That Scutosaurus is doing some heavy lifting as the only non-archosaur and the only Paleozoic animal.


2,538 million years

DeAgostini maybe shouldn't count because they reuse molds (like calling a repainted Carnotaurus "Aucasaurus" and a repainted Pteranodon "Pterodactylus"), but if we take them at their word we get this:


1,414 million years

Favorite did okay, if you include the big vinyl mosasaur:


1,267 million years

And a surprise appearance in 6th place (5th if you disregard DeAgostini) from Xidi/Happy Kin:


1,261 million years; they might have done even better if repaints were included, which is a little unfair as I counted repaints for Mattel. I just can't be as sure about them with Happy Kin. Too bad I haven't been able to actually find any of the Happy Kin figures for sale.


The blue line is a simple linear regression of tree length against taxon number. CollectA and Tomy are in just a different world from everyone else. The position of PNSO kind of shows why they're unlikely to be my favorite company any time soon. They make some pretty nice figures, but they rarely take a chance except for the miniatures, sticking to two periods (the Cretaceous and a sprinkling of the Jurassic) and overwhelmingly two major clades (ornithischians and theropods, and really only a handful of subgroups within those clades). Their 2021 will look at least a tiny bit better thanks to the Helicoprion, and maybe a lot better if they make some interesting miniatures.