The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Halichoeres]

Joining the herd! That Tsintaosaurus ruins every goddamn family portrait.

It looks like the Lambeosaurus is using it crest to tell the Tsintaosaurus to get out of the photo!

Oh, man, it totally does! Now that I see the Lambeosaurus crest as a hand, I can think of a variety of obscene photo setups possible with those two.

[Libraraptor]

It looks like the Lambeosaurus is using it crest to tell the Tsintaosaurus to get out of the photo!

Oh, man, it totally does! Now that I see the Lambeosaurus crest as a hand, I can think of a variety of obscene photo setups possible with those two.

LMAO!!!!

[Brachiosaurus]

Joining the herd! That Tsintaosaurus ruins every goddamn family portrait.

It looks like the Lambeosaurus is using it crest to tell the Tsintaosaurus to get out of the photo!

Oh, man, it totally does! Now that I see the Lambeosaurus crest as a hand, I can think of a variety of obscene photo setups possible with those two.

What scale is the Lambeosaurus and edmontosaurus?

[Halichoeres]

Joining the herd! That Tsintaosaurus ruins every goddamn family portrait.

It looks like the Lambeosaurus is using it crest to tell the Tsintaosaurus to get out of the photo!

Oh, man, it totally does! Now that I see the Lambeosaurus crest as a hand, I can think of a variety of obscene photo setups possible with those two.

What scale is the Lambeosaurus and edmontosaurus?

The Lambeosaurus is about 1:30-1:32. The Edmontosaurus is about 1:40-1:45, although in the case of Edmontosaurus it depends which species you're talking about. 

[Halichoeres]

Other Late Cretaceous ornithischians:


Schleich Torosaurus (Replicasaurus line). Most Replicasaurus figures are larger than 1:40, but this one is actually just about right. Replaced the CollectA version, which was too small and had a weird face.


CollectA Chasmosaurus. There should be more versions of this animal. And better versions. Mr. Watson, want to take a crack at it? About 1:35.


CollectA Utahceratops. This one I like. About 1:45.


CollectA Medusaceratops, a genus known from two partial parietals, which honestly I'm not sure even warrants a formal name. Good candidate for nomen dubium status down the road, I would say. Let's see how many fights I can start: all genus-level phylogenetic results that include this in the matrix are almost automatically garbage; I increasingly agree with those who say that the sacral quills wouldn't be present in this part of the ceratopsian family tree; and whereas this figure looks nice, I'd rather see good versions of animals known from entire skulls. Probably about 1:40-1:45, but who the hell knows from two partial parietals?


Xidi (Lontic) "Diceratops" (=Nedoceratops because Diceratops is a genus of ichneumon wasp). Reasonable chance of synonymy with Triceratops at some point. This figure isn't that good, but it's known from a whole skull and nobody else has made one yet. About 1:50.


CollectA Xenoceratops. Another one based on just a handful of skull fragments. It also looks quite nice, but again, would rather have had an Einiosaurus, a Centrosaurus, or an Udanoceratops. Extrapolating from disarticulated chunks of skull--not even from one individual--it's roughly 1:40.


Chasmosaurines!


Mostly centrosaurines, plus one stray pachycephalosaur!


Schleich Saichania (World of History). Came to me randomly in an eBay lot, and out of curiosity I measured both it and the Replicasaurus version I already had. The former is about 1:25, but this one is actually about 1:38, so given that they're almost exactly the same sculpt, I swapped in favor of the just-about-1:40 version.


Battat Euoplocephalus (Boston Museum of Science): another eBay find, got it for about $4. Replaced the Papo "Ankylocephalus." About 1:30.


Ankylosaurs are pretty much the best. I like theropods fine, but man, I'd really like to see more ornithischians. CollectA's 2016 assortment looks great, but it's 8 theropods and 1 ornithischian! Maybe 2017 will restore some balance.

[SBell]

Ankylosaurs are pretty much the best. I like theropods fine, but man, I'd really like to see more ornithischians. CollectA's 2016 assortment looks great, but it's 8 theropods and 1 ornithischian! Maybe 2017 will restore some balance.

To be fair, though, many of the 8 theropods are less common models--3 ornithomimisaurs! As opposed to just a bunch of allosaurs, tyrannosaurs, megalosaurs and such.

I am still pushing for an entire season of non-dinosaur Permian/Triassic animals myself.

[MLMjp]

Ankylosaurs are pretty much the best. I like theropods fine, but man, I'd really like to see more ornithischians. CollectA's 2016 assortment looks great, but it's 8 theropods and 1 ornithischian! Maybe 2017 will restore some balance.

To be fair, though, many of the 8 theropods are less common models--3 ornithomimisaurs! As opposed to just a bunch of allosaurs, tyrannosaurs, megalosaurs and such.

I am still pushing for an entire season of non-dinosaur Permian/Triassic animals myself.

You can always dream

[Halichoeres]

Ankylosaurs are pretty much the best. I like theropods fine, but man, I'd really like to see more ornithischians. CollectA's 2016 assortment looks great, but it's 8 theropods and 1 ornithischian! Maybe 2017 will restore some balance.

To be fair, though, many of the 8 theropods are less common models--3 ornithomimisaurs! As opposed to just a bunch of allosaurs, tyrannosaurs, megalosaurs and such.

I am still pushing for an entire season of non-dinosaur Permian/Triassic animals myself.

That's true, there are some cool choices and I plan to get the majority of their 2016 prehistoric releases. The Beishanlong and Thalassomedon are particularly exciting.

I would support a Permian/Triassic year completely! By my count they've never done anything Permian, and only 3 Triassic ones, right? Plateosaurus, Herrerasaurus, Liliensternus?

[Sim]

CollectA Medusaceratops, a genus known from two partial parietals, which honestly I'm not sure even warrants a formal name. Good candidate for nomen dubium status down the road, I would say. Let's see how many fights I can start: all genus-level phylogenetic results that include this in the matrix are almost automatically garbage; I increasingly agree with those who say that the sacral quills wouldn't be present in this part of the ceratopsian family tree; and whereas this figure looks nice, I'd rather see good versions of animals known from entire skulls. Probably about 1:40-1:45, but who the hell knows from two partial parietals?

Medusaceratops is known from the Judith River Formation.  And so is... Mercuriceratops!  Medusaceratops is only known from these bones, right?:


Mercuriceratops is only known from these bones:


So that would mean they are both known from different parts of the skull, they both lived in the same place at roughly the same time...  It looks like they could be the same species!  And either or both of them look like they could be the same species as Ceratops too...  Medusaceratops and Ceratops are apparently from the exact same place and time!  I noticed the palaeontologist Michael Ryan is one of the authors for both Medusaceratops and Mercuriceratops...

[Halichoeres]

Ha ha, maybe. I don't know this fellow, but describing a new genus is good for one's career...

[stargatedalek]

While a tempting idea I don't think the openings in the frill match up. Unless of course it has figure eight openings which is a pretty interesting idea in itself.

[Sim]

It's not known what Mercuriceratops's frill openings look like, or if it had any.  Most ceratopsids are known to have frill openings, but Triceratops doesn't have any...  Neither does Avaceratops, which lived at the same place and time as Mercuriceratops...

If Medusaceratops is only known from the two partial parietals that can be seen in the first image in my previous post, frill openings aren't known for Medusaceratops either.  I'm not sure if that's all Medusaceratops is known from though.  I've been looking into it more, and I seem to be finding conflicting information.

The first image in my previous post is from this cleveland.com report on the discovery of Medusaceratops, which suggests more is known of Medusaceratops as it gives rather confident measurements for Medusaceratops's overall size, frill size and even its brow horns!  This is in contrast to the Medusaceratops pages on Prehistoric Wildlife and Wikipedia which suggest it's known only from two partial parietals.  It seems to me Prehistoric Wildlife is saying the face horns and overall frill shape of Medusaceratops aren't known which would disagree with what the report says.

The paper that officially names Xenoceratops (I noticed it's by Michael Ryan again, like with Medusa and Mercuri) says, "Although fragmentary, the preserved nasal fragment suggests that Xenoceratops may have had an elongate, low nasal ornamentation similar to that of Medusaceratops and that which has been reconstructed for Albertaceratops (Ryan 2007)."  This suggests that part of Medusaceratops is known too.  Make yourself comfortable, because there's more to come...

Paleofile's Medusaceratops page lists quite a bit more remains.  For what it's worth though, most of the referred material seems identical to what Paleofile has on their Albertaceratops page.  Fossils now assigned to Medusaceratops were assigned to Albertaceratops before so that might be why.  The Paleofile Medusaceratops page shows it to have very small-looking brow horns.  I'm not sure if that would contradict what Medusaceratops's brow horns are described to look like on Prehistoric Beast of the Week here, About.com here and the cleveland.com report.  All three of these pages especially the first two imply Medusaceratops's brow horns are known and looked different to what is shown on Paleofile.

Next, Palaeocritti says Medusaceratops is known from a near complete skeleton!  It too says Medusaceratops is known to have long brow horns.  Dinochecker has interesting things to say about Medusaceratops, including the possibility it and Ceratops could be the same species.  Coming back to Wikipedia, the Wikipedia Ceratops page says:

In 1995, David Trexler and F.G. Sweeney noted that complete material from a bonebed that had been found in Montana could enable Ceratops to be reexamined. The site, known as the Mansfield Bonebed, belongs to the same stratigraphic level as the one that yielded the original Ceratops remains. It had initially been interpreted as containing Styracosaurus, but what earlier authors considered the frill spikes of Styracosaurus turned out to be chasmosaurine orbital horns. Trexler and Sweeney pointed out that these horns closely resembled those of Ceratops, and could allow the genus to be rescued as a valid name.[6] The ceratopsids in the bonebed were later referred to the genus Albertaceratops, and later re-classified in their own genus, Medusaceratops.[7]

So, if that material is now assigned to Medusaceratops, does that mean it's known from more than two partial parietals?  Or is it uncertain how much material belongs to Medusaceratops?

Out of all the sources I've mentioned in this post, I don't know which ones are up-to-date and how much they can all be relied on.  The paper that officially names Medusaceratops might be helpful, but I haven't found it publicly available, so I've not read it.


I didn't know of Michael Ryan before.  I found it interesting he's an author for Medusaceratops and Mercuriceratops, as well as Xenoceratops and Albertaceratops.  I'm not going to assume anything.

[Halichoeres]

I found the paper--well, actually it's a book chapter, and it's the first hit on scholar.google.com if you search "Medusaceratops". The holotype is just the parietals shown in the image you posted. There is other referred material, but it's not at all certain that it belongs to the same animal. I think a few too many names have been handed out in the neighborhood of the Judith River, but we'll see.

[Sim]

Thanks Tim!

[Halichoeres]

Ornithischians and sauropods of the Late Cretaceous!


Kaiyodo Protoceratops (UHA Collect Club). Best Protoceratops ever. About 1:15.


By way of contrast, Boley Pinacosaurus. $2.50 at CVS (for those outside North America, it's a drug store chain), and I don't know any other Pinacosaurus figures. Not that this toy particularly resembles any genus. Call it a placeholder. About 1:20.


GeoWorld Stygimoloch (Jurassic Hunters). Lots of Jurassic Hunters figures are decent sculps whose main problem is sloppy or unrealistic paint. This one is a bad sculpt into the bargain. About 1:10-1:12.


Xidi "Microceratops" (=Microceratus because Microceratops is an ichneumon wasp). Hilariously proportioned, which makes it hard to estimate scale, but I'd say it's about 1:5.


Sellanomer Montanoceratops (Gimiki's Journey). A reasonable if slightly twee representation of an immature ceratopsian. About 1:5.


I like to think that once in a while the photos in this thread have combinations that have never been photographed before.


Depth of field inversely correlated with quality.


More ornithischians. Couldn't bring myself to give up these Protoceratops figures after getting the UHA, so now I just have three.


CollectA Deluxe Paralititan. Supposedly in 1:40. That might be true for the head, but overall it's more like 1:60-1:65. Also the smallest CollectA Deluxe I've seen. And one of the uglier ones.


CollectA Rebbachisaurus. Also not much of a looker. About 1:90.


Sega Isisaurus (Dinosaur King). It's pretty okay as action figures go. About 1:40, too.


Sauropods! More than a two-fold range of scales--hard to get 1:40 sauropods without spending hundreds of dollars on Shapeways.

[DinoLord]

Nice pictures, though I must respectfully disagree and argue that the orange Dinotales Protoceratops is the best ever. 

[SBell]

Nice pictures, though I must respectfully disagree and argue that the orange Dinotales Protoceratops is the best ever. 

I have to agree--although it is a little smaller.

As for Styginoloch...I never was able to get the GeoWorld into my store (and now they appear to have flaked out...). For such an interesting species (or, life stage?) nobody has really tried to do a good one.

The Waiphoon is pretty much the same:

But more rare!

And the little one from Animal Planet Micro Kingdom. Small, but really no different looking!

[Halichoeres]

Nice pictures, though I must respectfully disagree and argue that the orange Dinotales Protoceratops is the best ever. 

Them's fightin' words! 

@SBell: I wasn't aware of the Waiphoon! You're right, pretty similar quality. I have that little Micro Kingdoms one (I bought the set for the Protosuchus), but I keep it in the box of dime-o-saurs that I'll eventually get around to selling or giving away.

It is odd that there are so few toy versions. As for whether it's a life stage, one thing hangs me up: If the horns and other ornamentation of the head are the product of sexual selection or associated with species recognition, it strikes me as odd that it would diminish with age. The skull of Pachycephalosaurus is quite a bit larger than that of Stygimoloch, right, which would imply a more mature animal? The only way I can see the skull of Stygimoloch being of an immature animal is if the horn core supported a much larger defensive structure, which for whatever reason the adult needed less. Sort of like a larval butterflyfish.

[stargatedalek]

IIRC there is an unpublished skull of a Pachycephalosaurus smaller than Stygimoloch, but I still think it makes sense to leave Dracorex as a nomen dubium for now as it seems very applicable to Stygimoloch.

[Dilopho]

Nice pictures, though I must respectfully disagree and argue that the orange Dinotales Protoceratops is the best ever. 

Them's fightin' words! 

@SBell: I wasn't aware of the Waiphoon! You're right, pretty similar quality. I have that little Micro Kingdoms one (I bought the set for the Protosuchus), but I keep it in the box of dime-o-saurs that I'll eventually get around to selling or giving away.

It is odd that there are so few toy versions. As for whether it's a life stage, one thing hangs me up: If the horns and other ornamentation of the head are the product of sexual selection or associated with species recognition, it strikes me as odd that it would diminish with age. The skull of Pachycephalosaurus is quite a bit larger than that of Stygimoloch, right, which would imply a more mature animal? The only way I can see the skull of Stygimoloch being of an immature animal is if the horn core supported a much larger defensive structure, which for whatever reason the adult needed less. Sort of like a larval butterflyfish.

I can't decide if this is adorable or creepy!