The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[ceratopsian]

However, the German site gives no data on the etymology that I can see.

Alectrosaurus: the form of the first element isn't right for rooster - but of course palaeontologists are not classicists!  However, I found this snippet on the Alectrosaurus entry at:

https://dinosaurdictionary.com/alectrosaurus/

"The name Alectrosaurus means "unmarried lizard" in Greek, and was chosen by Charles W. Gilmore when he described the genus in 1933. Gilmore believed that he had found a fossil of a female dinosaur that had not yet mated. The specific name olseni is in honor of George Olsen, who discovered the first specimens."

Of course I have no idea how reliable that is!

There is a German website which has quite reasonable information. Unfortunately it is in German, but it could be still useful: https://dinodata.de/animals/dinosaurs/pages_a/alectrosaurus.php

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for stopping by and commenting, folks!

Alectrosaurus: the form of the first element isn't right for rooster - but of course palaeontologists are not classicists!  However, I found this snippet on the Alectrosaurus entry at:

https://dinosaurdictionary.com/alectrosaurus/

"The name Alectrosaurus means "unmarried lizard" in Greek, and was chosen by Charles W. Gilmore when he described the genus in 1933. Gilmore believed that he had found a fossil of a female dinosaur that had not yet mated. The specific name olseni is in honor of George Olsen, who discovered the first specimens."

Of course I have no idea how reliable that is!

I'm glad you chimed in! I wager that an early 20th century paleontologist would know more Greek than I do, and certainly you do. The description contains no speculation on the sex of the specimen, let alone its mating status, but perhaps there are field notes or some other lore somewhere supporting the 'unmarried' meaning. At any rate, if the form of the word is closer to that, then I think that's what I should go with. Thanks!

There is a German website which has quite reasonable information. Unfortunately it is in German, but it could be still useful: https://dinodata.de/animals/dinosaurs/pages_a/alectrosaurus.php

Thank you, I'll bookmark the site for future reference!

[Concavenator]

A pity to see the Eotyrannus outdated right out of the bag. But of course it's a noticeable upgrade coming from the old CollectA one.

[Halichoeres]

Page 1 updated!

That BotM Moros was much needed. The toy is far from what the Dominion film design went with too (probably designed much earlier).

I took another look at the Mattel one as I was removing it from the shelf forever, and it really is wild how much it departs from the movie design (let alone actual life). Feels good to kick it to the curb.

A pity to see the Eotyrannus outdated right out of the bag. But of course it's a noticeable upgrade coming from the old CollectA one.

Was the main conflict between the figure and the Naish & Cau monograph the shape of the dentary? To me the extreme protrusion of the dentary is much more consequential!

[Flaffy]

Great acquisitions again @Halichoeres !

Etymology: Wikipedia says "unmarried lizard" or "alone lizard," but the original description doesn't specify and I think Gr. "rooster lizard" is at least as plausible.
This one was definitely larger than I was expecting. I'd been thinking of Alectrosaurus as one of the smaller tyrannosauroids, but it definitely had long legs (though we know almost nothing about the rest of it). This figure shows it as a generally lanky animal, reminiscent of an alioramin. The paint job is really striking; I like it.

I had debated heavily on getting the Alectrosaurus, but figured I had to draw some line to avoid breaking the bank on BotM figures. Already made an exception for the highly fragmentary Proceratosaurus afterall. Still wish the figure was Xiongguanlong instead, but what we got is no doubt a beautiful figure.

This one has worse quality control than the Moros, possibly the worst underbite of any of my BotM figures. Even with the mouth open it's quite obvious. Even so, it's a huge improvement over the CollectA Eotyrannus, a figure so ugly that I once considered replacing with the TS Toys WWD Ornitholestes, merely because it was mislabeled as Eotyrannus.

Same as the Alectrosaurus, I had been going back and forth on this one. But Spinodude's review (and further in-hand pics) pushed the Eotyrannus into the "skip" category for me. In no large part due to the obvious underbite. With the high price of BotM figures I don't think it's unreasonable to hold them to a higher standard especially when it comes to QC. David unforunately didn't have time to incorporate Naish's Eotyrannus monograph into the figure as well, so I'll patiently wait for someone else to tackle this primitive tyrannosaur.

[Sim]

I too would have preferred Xiongguanlong was made instead of Alectrosaurus.  I like the BotM Eotyrannus a lot, even with the underbite, but if someone makes a good smaller one I think I will replace the BotM version with it.  1:18 is not my preferred scale and the only BotM figures I have are of smaller animals which I would prefer were made in the smaller, in the same scale as larger species I have.  Having them in a smaller scale would also give me valuable space for the figures I'm keeping.  Large animals in 1:18 are definitely too big for me.

[Concavenator]

Was the main conflict between the figure and the Naish & Cau monograph the shape of the dentary? To me the extreme protrusion of the dentary is much more consequential!

This is the updated skeletal by Dan Folkes (2022), featured in the paper:



In the BotM figure, the skull appears to be too tall and is proportionately too big. Other than that, the manus are wrong. Namely, the relationship between the fingers' length is wrong. As can be seen from the skeletal, D-I should be the shortest, D-II longer than D-I and D-III longer than D-II (ignoring that its claw wasn't preserved). D-III should be longer in the BotM figure. And more of a nitpick, its arms could perhaps use to be a bit stouter. Eotyrannus has powerful arms.

Inaccuracies (well, the poor thing just became obsolete, it's not David's fault of course) and prognathism aside, it is still a very pretty figure.

[Sim]

I remember David corrected the Eotyrannus's hands after @Flaffy told him about the updated proportions.  It's strange the final figure doesn't have that.  It's not a big deal to me though, I find it an enjoyable figure that's close enough to the real animal for me.

[Flaffy]

I remember David corrected the Eotyrannus's hands after @Flaffy told him about the updated proportions.  It's strange the final figure doesn't have that.  It's not a big deal to me though, I find it an enjoyable figure that's close enough to the real animal for me.

Indeed, tis a shame. But good for my wallet
I'm do wonder why the final figure lacks the corrected hands as well... Maybe the factory just missed it somewhere along the production process?

Well, there is some great news: David did manage to fix the Eotyrannus's hands and arm proportions!

"It's worth mentioning that the  hands in the upper right are brand new hands for Eotyrannus with the longer third digit and shorter arms. I was barely able to implement this in time based on the newly published findings. It's been suggested that I adjust the head sculpt as well, but for the sake of not delaying these figures further, and given that the head is mostly covered in 'fluff', I opted not to. Plus, I just don't think it's a good idea to make significant changes to the look of a figure that many people have already ordered. But tweaking the hands and arms seemed subtle enough."
- David

[Sim]

@Halichoeres, I thought you might like to know I don't find megalodon interesting anymore.  It's in contrast to an increasing interest I have in cartilaginous fish, eels and deep-sea fish.  Have you shown your extant fish figures in this thread?  I can't remember if you have.

[Halichoeres]

Ooh, yeah, the hands are a non-trivial oversight. Still, miles better than any Eotyrannus previously available. Thanks for the info, guys!

Halichoeres, I thought you might like to know I don't find megalodon interesting anymore.  It's in contrast to an increasing interest I have in cartilaginous fish, eels and deep-sea fish.  Have you shown your extant fish figures in this thread?  I can't remember if you have.

Wonderful! There are so many other interesting fish.

I haven't really focused on extant fish here. I wrote a review on the ATF a few years ago on Bandai's characin figures, and I've shown Colorata's "fossil" fishes box, but I think that's it.

My extant fish collection is pretty modest, and tends to focus on non-teleost actinopterygians, which I almost did my PhD on, and Characiformes, which I actually did my PhD on.

[Primeval12]

@Halichoeres, I thought you might like to know I don't find megalodon interesting anymore.  It's in contrast to an increasing interest I have in cartilaginous fish, eels and deep-sea fish.  Have you shown your extant fish figures in this thread?  I can't remember if you have.

So many cooler fish out there. Rhizodus is my favorite!

[Halichoeres]

@Halichoeres, I thought you might like to know I don't find megalodon interesting anymore.  It's in contrast to an increasing interest I have in cartilaginous fish, eels and deep-sea fish.  Have you shown your extant fish figures in this thread?  I can't remember if you have.

So many cooler fish out there. Rhizodus is my favorite!

Rhizodus is an excellent choice!

And now, archosaurs of the Mesozoic!


Mattel Hesperosaurus
Scale: 1:20
Released: 2024
Upper Jurassic of Laurasia
Etymology: Gr. "western lizard"
Not often that Mattel is the first to make a toy of an herbivore, but it happens from time to time. This is an adequate entry by their standards, even if the head is pretty derpy.


My entire Mattel stegosaur collection.


Haolonggood Dilophosaurus
Scale: 1:30
Released: 2023
Lower Jurassic of Laurasia
Etymology: Gr. "two-crested lizard"
It has some proportion problems, and I'd have given it lips, but the head sculpt is excellent and the paint job is beautiful. It came in a pair but I only really want one. The squatting posture and color scheme make this one the winner, since I won't have to worry about its stability and the pose de-emphasizes the torso length. This replaces my Safari Dilophosaurus, which nevertheless had several things in favor of it.


Early Jurassic cool hat club.


Mattel Eoraptor
Scale: 1:9
Released: 2024
Upper Triassic of Gondwana
Etymology: Gr./L. "dawn plunderer"
This was packaged with a similarly small Stegouros action figure. It's an interesting approach to getting smaller animals into the line; I wonder if more two-packs will be made. It's still too large to really be in scale with the rest of the line, but for a kids' action figure line it could be worse.


It happens to scale well with some of my other animals from the Ischigualasto Formation.


Mattel Poposaurus
Scale: 1:20 - 1:25
Released: 2024
Upper Triassic of Laurasia
Etymology: after the Middle Fork Popo Agie River in Wyoming, USA, and Gr. "lizard" (although I like to imagine a pun was intended with ποπός "butt," since the holotype consists mainly of hip bones)
For my money, this is the coolest thing Mattel has made. It's obviously stylized, but it is recognizably Poposaurus and reasonably well done. A great example of the funky experiments going on among pseudosuchians during the Triassic period.


One of these is more closely related to crocodiles than the other, and it's not the one you'd think!

[bmathison1972]

What's the crocodylomorph (?) to the left of the Poposaurus in that last pic?

[Flaffy]

What's the crocodylomorph (?) to the left of the Poposaurus in that last pic?

Expo exclusive Favorite Co. Redondasaurus. Came with a Coelophysis.
https://dinotoyblog.com/redondasaurus-vs-coelophysis-favorite-co-ltd/

[Primeval12]

I picked up both the Eoraptor and Poposaurus. Sometimes I need a cute stylized figure and the Eoraptor definitely fits the bill. I also like how they gave it lips. The Poposaurus is such a weird critter. I got to see a skeleton of one recently and I just found out that it lacks the sail. I don't know why Mattel constructed it like that but I'm just glad to have some more Triassic fauna in the collection.

As for the dilo, I have not pulled the trigger but it IS my state dinosaur (despite there being no concrete fossil evidence of it living here) so I feel like I need to at some point...

[Flaffy]

I picked up both the Eoraptor and Poposaurus. Sometimes I need a cute stylized figure and the Eoraptor definitely fits the bill. I also like how they gave it lips. The Poposaurus is such a weird critter. I got to see a skeleton of one recently and I just found out that it lacks the sail. I don't know why Mattel constructed it like that but I'm just glad to have some more Triassic fauna in the collection.

Likely an over exaggeration from being based off this artwork. Standard Mattel stylisation.

[Concavenator]

Since you got HLG's Dilophosaurus, will you cancel the preorder for the Cyberzoic version (can that be done?) or sell it when you receive it?

Eoraptor is a very important animal that's more overlooked than it should. But these days it seems any animal that wouldn't have a good size in 1:35 scale just doesn't exist for these companies.

[bmathison1972]

Thanks Flaffy re: Favorite Redondasaurus

[Gwangi]

The Hesperosaurus didn't make the cut for me, I can't get past the turtle head. But as goofy looking as it is I still ended up getting the Eoraptor set, which I initially didn't think I would bother with. The Poposaurus was a must have. I have no logical explanation as to why some Mattel figures appeal to me and others don't.