The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Brontozaurus]

Keldan International Diamantinasaurus (Australian Dinosaur Hatching Eggs)
Scale: 1:70 or thereabouts
Cenomanian or Turonian of Australia
This is another one I won't keep, but I bought it out of sheer curiosity. Maybe by sharing here I'll save someone else the trouble. This is one of those toys you're supposed to soak in water overnight and the egg it's in will dissolve, freeing the toy within. I find the residue from those eggs gross, so I just used a hammer. That leaves some adhesive residue on the tip of the hilariously stumpy tail, but I can live with that. Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, this is the only plastic toy of Diamantinasaurus, although the re-release of Banjo gives me renewed hope that there will be one from AAoD in the future.

It's so funny to me that you got this, because years ago I worked at a (terrible in hindsight) science gift store and we got a bunch of them in. Being a collector of Australian genera and therefore conditioned to get whatever scraps are thrown my way, I bought all four varieties: the above Diamantinasaurus, plus Australovenator, Minmi (pre-Kunbarrasaurus) and Muttaburrasaurus.

Surprisingly, I'm pretty sure they're original molds instead of just being reused from another line; they're all stylistically similar, and basically chibi-fied versions of the art included on their info pamphlets. But they're definitely meant for kids toys and not for collectors, particularly because whatever they're made from isn't made to last - mine fell to bits ages ago.

[Halichoeres]

@Brontozaurus your desperation with respect to Australian stuff mirrors my own with respect to the Paleozoic and Triassic! Thanks for the info on the egg toys, now I won't be too hurt when they deteriorate. I wonder if it makes a difference that I smashed mine with a hammer--did you dissolve yours in water as per the instructions?

Today, jawless fishes of the Silurian. All of these are from Oumcraft, released in 2022. 


Jamoytius
Scale: 1:6
Early Silurian
One of the clunkier fish names out there, after the famous paleoichthyologist James Alan Moy-Thomas. He had a brief but distinguished career, authoring the original volume of the book Palaeozoic Fishes (I have the 1971 revised edition) and naming lots of new genera before dying at age 35 in a car wreck during World War II. He was also honored with the nicer sounding name Moythomasia, given to a Devonian actinopterygian. Anyway, this animal was similar to Birkenia and Pharyngolepis, except that it had either very thin armor or none at all. The putative ventrolateral fins are now thought to be preservation artifacts, and in life it would have looked rather like a lamprey, with only midline fins. In that respect this figure is a bit out of date, but I'm glad to have it anyway.


Americaspis
Scale: 1:4 - 1:5
Latest Silurian
The name means "American shield," which sounds like a knockoff Captain America action figure you'd find at a swap meet (flea market for those of you not from the western US). It was originally named Palaeaspis, but that name was preoccupied by a fossil turtle, so Errol White and Moy-Thomas gave it and a bunch of other fossil fishes new names in a terse 1941 paper published as a supplement to Sheffield Neave's compendium of all zoological names assigned up to that time. As for the animal itself, I can't decide whether it looks more like a spaceship with a tail, or a worm with a helmet. A nice rendition of a very elegant, sleek-looking fish. You can just see its tiny eyes poking out between the halves of its head shield.


Bothriolepis is from tens of millions of years in the future, when jawed fishes were taking over the world.


Birkenia
Scale: 1:3 - 1:4
Middle - Late Silurian
Named after Birkenhead Burn in Scotland, but also found in North America, this little animal had narrow plates of bone that may have grown directly over its myotomes, thus showing externally how its muscles were arranged. It's hard to be sure because the muscles themselves didn't preserve, but the plates look suspiciously like vertebrate body segments. Promotional materials for Sterling Lanier's legendary line of bronze prehistoric figurines suggest a Birkenia was in the works, and someone claims to have seen one, but nobody has ever furnished solid evidence that it was actually produced. Now that I have this version, I can stop searching and wondering, and just enjoy this Birkenia and my Lanier Climatius.


Pharyngolepis
Scale: 1:3 - 1:4
Late Silurian
Heavily armored with a row of spikes along its back, like Birkenia, except without the distinctive pronged spike in the middle of the back. The name means "throat scale," although I think it's just because its throat and scales are both notable, not because of scales specifically on its throat. Its throat is notable for being well-preserved enough to conclude that it had gill pouches, like those of a lamprey, that would have let it filter food from the water, which is what most lampreys do most of the time--only a few species feed on blood, and not for their whole lives. 


With Colorata's Cephalaspis. Fishes like these might actually have overlapped in time.

[SBell]

Funny thing -- I have the 1939 edition of Palaeozoic Fishes!

Found it in a pile of unwanted books in Grad school

[Faelrin]

I kind of wondered where Jamoytius got its name from. Good to see it went to honor a paleontologist who passed away so tragically young.

[Concavenator]

Thank you! I want to be clear that I don't have anything against dinosaurs in themselves. If every company made nothing but Devonian fish for a year, I'm sure I'd be thrilled. If they did it for a second year I would be less thrilled. The third year I'd probably start circulating petitions. I guess I just have a high appetite for variety. It's why I've never been a regular at a restaurant even if I lived next door or upstairs.

Here's a graph showing releases from major companies that tend to be popular among prehistoric collectors (I'm leaving out repaints, model kits, statues, and any company making mostly pop culture figures). Cambrian is at the top, the present is at the bottom. I squished the Neogene and Quaternary together because the Quaternary is so tiny. It's 39 Cretaceous animals (79 million years), and 15 for the entire rest of the Phanerozoic (462 million years). One can see why I was almost tempted to buy Schleich's Nothosaurus, despite its being very ugly. And one can see why I'm so grateful for Oumcraft and CollectA.

Yeah, the Cretaceous receives a disproportionate attention. Really looks like it's the only period companies care about. Even the Jurassic is way off! The graph also shows how neglected sauropodomorphs are (~7.3 % of new releases) in comparison to theropods (44.4 %, the BotM 1:18 Velociraptor is missing) and ornithischians (~29.1 %). Among sauropodomorphs, the non-sauropod ones are nonexistent. @Sim this is what I was referring to when I said some time ago that sauropodomorphs are quite overlooked, at least comparatively speaking.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about theropods if they suddenly swapped popularity with Devonian fishes' current popularity? 

Also, I didn't know any of those fishes (save for Bothriolepis) before. As a non-fish expert, I find your thread to be educative in that aspect.

[Brontozaurus]

@Brontozaurus your desperation with respect to Australian stuff mirrors my own with respect to the Paleozoic and Triassic! Thanks for the info on the egg toys, now I won't be too hurt when they deteriorate. I wonder if it makes a difference that I smashed mine with a hammer--did you dissolve yours in water as per the instructions?

Yeah I put all of mine in water, I'd never seen a hatching egg toy work before so I wanted to see it for myself. It was pretty cool seeing the toy break out of the shell over a few days, though like you I suspect that it probably didn't do their longevity any favours.

[Halichoeres]

Funny thing -- I have the 1939 edition of Palaeozoic Fishes!

Found it in a pile of unwanted books in Grad school

What a great find! Maybe I'll be that lucky one day with Janvier's Early Vertebrates, which is otherwise $200 - $300.

Yeah, the Cretaceous receives a disproportionate attention. Really looks like it's the only period companies care about. Even the Jurassic is way off! The graph also shows how neglected sauropodomorphs are (~7.3 % of new releases) in comparison to theropods (44.4 %, the BotM 1:18 Velociraptor is missing) and ornithischians (~29.1 %). Among sauropodomorphs, the non-sauropod ones are nonexistent. @Sim this is what I was referring to when I said some time ago that sauropodomorphs are quite overlooked, at least comparatively speaking.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about theropods if they suddenly swapped popularity with Devonian fishes' current popularity? 

Also, I didn't know any of those fishes (save for Bothriolepis) before. As a non-fish expert, I find your thread to be educative in that aspect.

Leaving aside questions of completeness, I think there are more named Mesozoic theropods than either ornithischians or sauropodomorphs, but not more than both together. And anyway, ornithischians have more morphological variation, so to me it seems natural to explore that variation sculpturally. All three clades have major subsets that are almost completely ignored, like the bagualosaurians, or the thescelosaurids, or the alvarezsaurids, in favor of the same handful of specific genera. As you point out, I forgot to include the BotM Velociraptor, but also the various BotM Tyrannosaurus figures, as well as one of the Rebor Tyrannosaurus figures. So there were more figures of the latter genus in particular than all Jurassic animals, or all sauropodomorphs, or all Paleozoic animals, or lots of other fun comparisons you could try (as they say, comparison is the thief of joy).

If Devonian fishes and theropods suddenly swapped, I would get tired of Dunkleosteus pretty quickly. I think other than that I'd be pretty happy about it if it meant people were learning about new animals and ecosystems, and I could get some interesting new taxa on my shelves. I would certainly have to be stricter about which fish I bought. No more resin models or commissioned sculptures, because if they were produced at the volume and variety that theropods currently are I would quickly be out of space and money.

And I'm glad you're finding the thread useful! I'm finding the Oumcraft figures educational myself, which is great because I got into this hobby precisely because it prompts me to learn more.

Yeah I put all of mine in water, I'd never seen a hatching egg toy work before so I wanted to see it for myself. It was pretty cool seeing the toy break out of the shell over a few days, though like you I suspect that it probably didn't do their longevity any favours.

Good to know, thanks! I did the same for my Sbabam egg figures, so I'm looking forward to the disintegration of my ugly little Sinopterus.

[Bokisaurus]

Always nice to catch up with all your new additions 😃
I still can't get over how small to game figures are!

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for visiting, Boki!

First things first: I've updated the reference list on page 1. Some new releases aren't in there just because it's easier once I have them in hand.

Today I'm going to show you the entire contents of Kaiyodo's 2022 advent calendar. Sometimes I let curiosity and FOMO get the best of me, and this is one of those times.

It came in a sizable partitioned box, I was surprised by its dimensions. I thought about hiding each day behind the spoiler tag, but that seemed like too much work on the reader's part for a gimmick, and I doubt anyone here is really concerned about it being spoiled. Christmas has passed, after all, even for the Eastern Orthodox celebrants. Almost all items came in sealed plastic bags. I'll want to get rid of this someday, so I left most of them that way. None of them came with any of the usual information slips that come with the standard capsule figures, so without spending hours browsing through Kaiyodo's web site I don't know what everything is.

Day 1:

A stuffed bear with a sewing machine. Not sure whether the bear uses the machine or was born from it.

Day 2:

A military truck. This one had an open bag rather than a sealed one. From this set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/worldtank2-2/

Day 3:

A little digging reveals that this is a character named Little Mic from an animated kids' show called Kaiju Step Wandabada: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/others/kd051/

Day 4:

The helmet of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, whom I had never heard of but who evidently looms large in Japanese history.

Day 5:

A skeleton with a straw hat and a derringer pistol, from this pirate skeleton set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/armored-action-skull-plus_pirate/

Day 6:

My best guess is a miniature version of some famous sculpture.

Day 7:

Kemono Friends caiman character.

The tail, in case there were any doubt.

Day 8:

This appears to be a detail from "Children's Tree," a sculpture by a 20th century artist named Taro Okamoto

Day 9:

Little Kem from Kaiju Step Wandabada https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/others/kd052/

Day 10:


The Wild Rush spectacled caiman. I think this same mold was used for the generic 'crocodile' in the Artpla zoo set.

Day 11:

A gorilla using the toilet, from this set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/cqm137/

Looks like it's going well, must be that fiber-rich diet that gorillas eat.

Day 12:

Kemono Friends Reindeer character.

Day 13:

A glasses stand with miniature glasses.

Day 14:

A skeleton with curling equipment: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/cqm128/

Day 15:

Little Jiro from Kaiju Step Wandabada: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/others/kd053/

Day 16:

Beverage-related?

Day 17:

A little car, apparently a Suzuki Hustler: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/miniq/mqn018b/

Day 18:

A golden lab puppy and a cushion, from this set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/miniq/mqn033/

Day 19:

A horrifying stuffed animal with a very small car.

Day 20:

No idea.

Day 21:

A cat head...

...that clips to things. From this "cat badge" set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/capa-catbadge/

Day 22:

A small cat, but huge compared to what looks like an apartment courtyard.

Day 23:

The Penguin's Lunch great auk. Like the army truck, its bag was open.

Day 24:

I think this must also be a sculpture. It was in a sealed white bag, so it's the only one I actually tore open. My guess is that this is the only new or exclusive product in the box. I could be wrong, most of this stuff wouldn't be remotely on my radar. [Edit: I was in fact wrong. This is Tower of Youth by Taro Okamoto, from this set: https://kaiyodo.co.jp/items/capsule/art-piece02/. I figured from the opaque package and its position in the last slot that it might be special.] The same compartment in the box also included a pass good for one adult admission to Kaiyodo Hobby Museum.

I wasn't expecting much. The promotional material promised something very wide-ranging, but specifically included dinosaurs on the list of possibilities. The great auk counts on pedantic grounds, I guess. I figured there would be a Ty***nosaurus, and I have to say an auk is better than that. I'm having a hard time imagining someone that would find all of these items appealing, although I hope someone will, because at some point I'd like to unload the whole set. I don't know for sure that all the calendars were the same, but I suspect they were. Anyway, if you considered this but didn't succumb to curiosity, now you know you didn't miss anything! This reminds me of a conversation elsewhere on the forum about artificial scarcity, man, this is it!

[Dusty Wren]

What a bizarre grab bag of stuff. It's almost like they threw it together from the overstock of items that weren't selling well. I can't imagine there have been many takers for miniature versions of random modern art sculptures.

Thanks for taking the hit for us so we could satisfy our curiosity!

[SBell]

Maybe that's why they were reluctant to release images of what was included?
Unless every box was a somewhat random assortment of remainders.

I suppose that while not exciting to most of us, Kaiyodo is beloved enough in Japan that there are probably collectors more focused on the brand than on just animals.

[ceratopsian]

I'm lost for words on this one!  What a weird assortment of stuff....

[Faelrin]

Wow thanks for going through the trouble of this but I do think the contents are randomized unfortunately (but may have a similar theme per day?), as I think I've already seen some listings previously with different stock (I think from one of the links from @brettnj 's mails), and there's a few listings up now with different stuff:

https://jp.mercari.com/item/m16688391442
https://jp.mercari.com/item/m23733415702

Seller has more it seems:
https://jp.mercari.com/user/profile/793863118

Listing with the Great Auk that showed up in your set, with a capybara:
https://jp.mercari.com/item/m84544336862

At least we know some (if not all?) of these were probably older stock, such as the Great Auk figure there, which appears to have originally been a secret figure from a 2001 series. My curiosity does make me want to do some digging on everything here, but not sure how much luck I'll have. I'll try my hand at it tomorrow.

I'll be honest, some of these do interest me, and it's the two animals (and more so the extinct one), a few of the random cute things, and some that I find mildly humorous/amusing (like the gorilla). Most of on the other hand, not so much.

Hopefully we can find out more from any others that potentially bought the whole set, either here, or say on the ATF to know for sure how much of it is random. It would be good to maybe get in touch with brett about this to help get the word out on what yours contained at least.

[brettnj]

I'd been watching both YAJ and Mercari search links that Wes provided but all they've been showing are the unopened boxed sets, so I've had no information re: contents despite checking them (and a Google Image search) daily.

As I have written to go in tomorrow's group mail, while very unfortunate for Tim, it wound up being extremely lucky for all of the rest of our buyers (myself included) who wanted the set but were thwarted by its selling out almost upon announcement.

As I wrote in a prior group mail, at least now we know better re: next year.

Pointless now (and once again very annoying for Tim that I didn't think of it at the time), but what I thought of long after the fact is that we all could have put in a very small amount to order one calendar and have Wes open to check the contents to see if it was worth buying in numbers. Regardless of random content, we'd all have known we didn't want to spend money on more and no one would have lost big.

Brett

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for taking the hit for us so we could satisfy our curiosity!

Heh, glad I could be of service!

Maybe that's why they were reluctant to release images of what was included?
Unless every box was a somewhat random assortment of remainders.

I suppose that while not exciting to most of us, Kaiyodo is beloved enough in Japan that there are probably collectors more focused on the brand than on just animals.

Based on what Faelrin said above, it does seem to be more random than I thought. You might be on to something about general sentiment toward the brand. Lego has themed advent calendars, but they could probably get away with theme-less ones if they decided they wanted to.

I'm lost for words on this one!  What a weird assortment of stuff....

Really baffling!

@Faelrin thanks for sharing those. I poked around a bit and was able to identify a few of the non-animal items, so I've added that information to the post. Although Kaiyodo makes a huge array of licensed merch, I notice that only three or four outside IPs are represented here, including the works of Okamoto. So there do seem to be some constraints, but within that it might be quasi-random.

And Brett, not a bad idea, and thanks for the sympathy, but this is a manageable white elephant. I expect I'll be able to unload it at some point without any net financial loss.

Anyway, if anybody knows what any of the still-unidentified items are, please do enlighten me!

[Faelrin]

That reminds me I haven't actually gotten to looking just yet (caught up with working on some Skyrim modding stuff instead), sorry, but glad you were able to identify some of them already.

[Concavenator]

Talk about an heterogeneous set! Will you be keeping all that?

That great auk is pretty nice.

[CityRaptor]

So it is a mixed bag, just like I thought. Out of these, I would keep the Great Auk and the caiman...probably the caiman girl, too, as a companion piece and part of the oddball collection. 

[Halichoeres]

That reminds me I haven't actually gotten to looking just yet (caught up with working on some Skyrim modding stuff instead), sorry, but glad you were able to identify some of them already.

Oh, don't be sorry! You have no obligation here

Talk about an heterogeneous set! Will you be keeping all that?

That great auk is pretty nice.

The auk really is nice. I don't really collect modern animals and I'm afraid of the consequences if I start! So in the end I don't think I'll keep anything here.

So it is a mixed bag, just like I thought. Out of these, I would keep the Great Auk and the caiman...probably the caiman girl, too, as a companion piece and part of the oddball collection. 

The auk and the caiman are definitely the most tempting. I'll admit that given the presence of the word "dinosaur" in the ad copy, I expected at least one prehistoric item!

[CityRaptor]

To be fair, the Great Auk is, both a dinosaur and extinct. Although due to murder monkeys man rather than a meteor.