The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Halichoeres]

Nice risers; where'd you get them? I've found some similar ones in the past but they're very slippery.

Also, do you happen to have scale measurements for the WWD Toyway Allosaurus, Liopleurodon, Polacanthus, Tyrannosaurus, or Utahraptor?

I just picked up a WWD Liopleurodon and it's about 1:28 by my measurements.

[Halichoeres]

More Cretaceous stem-birds!


TS Toys pterosaur, based on the Walking with Dinosaurs design. That animal was called Ornithocheirus but based on remains now called Tropeognathus. So for me it's a Tropeognathus, and as such is about 1:11.


PNSO Nyctosaurus. Not sure what's up with the bill; I think these guys would have been pretty bad skimmers. I'm agnostic on the head sail; some studies find it mechanically implausible, while others find that it imposes no appreciable cost under most circumstances, and I'm not good enough at physics to know which has better support. Anyway, good looking toy, replaced the Good Dinosaur version. About 1:10.


Safari Psittacosaurus. Safari is just killing it this year. This one replaced the somewhat larger Carnegie version. About 1:14.


Kaiyodo Opisthocoelicaudia (UHA Collect Club). Someone please make a bigger version! This one is about 1:85-1:90.


PNSO Euhelopus. Imposing! I tell myself that it was sculpted during a dry season to excuse its gauntness. PNSO, keep the sauropods coming! 1:25.


PNSO Huanghetitan. Got a little battered around the snout en route, but it doesn't show too badly. This one has a more appropriate heft in my estimation. About 1:18 based on measurements of the cervical ribs and scapula.


Safari Giganotosaurus. It was really tough to decide between this one and the gorgeous Carnegie version. In the end I went with this one because of its improved tail musculature and greater stability. The head is slightly overwrought, but in all other respects this is a beautiful dinosaur. I like the base, too: it actually looks like gravely dirt and it's firm enough not to warp. Some other companies could learn from it. This figure is just a little large, around 1:35 based on the head.


Safari Tyrannosaurus. This was a very easy choice. There aren't very many feathered rexes, and I like to have one feathered and one scaly on my shelf because I regard its integument as a mostly unsettled question. This is a huge improvement on the CollectA Deluxe. It's about 1:35.


It's a little large to fit in with most of my tyrannosaurines, but it's not wildly conspicuous. The CollectA was on a base and also inexplicably unguligrade, in addition to having a very long tail, so it stuck out a lot more.


Safari Velociraptor. The Velociraptor we've all been waiting for. I remember how happy I was to get the 2015 Carnegie version, and this one just blows it out of the water (and replaces it in my collection). If that doesn't say something about the phenomenal state of the industry in 2017, I don't know what does. About 1:10.


Feathers, feathers everywhere!


Safari Microraptor. Another elegant birdlike dromaeosaurid, the first one I'm aware of to get the very simple pigmentation right. This replaced the lovely but now outdated Kaiyodo Expo version. About 1:5.

[Halichoeres]

2016 was an incredible year, dinosaur toy-wise.

[Reptilia]

Safari Velociraptor. The Velociraptor we've all been waiting for. I remember how happy I was to get the 2015 Carnegie version, and this one just blows it out of the water (and replaces it in my collection). If that doesn't say something about the phenomenal state of the industry in 2017, I don't know what does. About 1:10.

You seem you got lucky with yours, though the black around the eye is a little on the thin side. Nice shot, do you happen to have also the picture from the other side?

And what species and brand is the croc in the collective picture from your last post?

[Halichoeres]

Safari Velociraptor. The Velociraptor we've all been waiting for. I remember how happy I was to get the 2015 Carnegie version, and this one just blows it out of the water (and replaces it in my collection). If that doesn't say something about the phenomenal state of the industry in 2017, I don't know what does. About 1:10.

You seem you got lucky with yours, though the black around the eye is a little on the thin side. Nice shot, do you happen to have also the picture from the other side?

And what species and brand is the croc in the collective picture from your last post?

Lucky in terms of paint app? Yeah, it's fairly clean. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow when the sun's up; it's hard to get good light in my apartment at night.

That's the Favorite Redondasaurus (sold in a two pack with the Coelophysis).

[Halichoeres]

And here's a photo of the other side:

[AcroSauroTaurus]

More Cretaceous stem-birds!


Kaiyodo Opisthocoelicaudia (UHA Collect Club). Someone please make a bigger version! This one is about 1:85-1:90.

You might want to check the Cretaceous Collectibles thread then. I revealed two more species for wave 2.

[Halichoeres]

Kaiyodo Opisthocoelicaudia (UHA Collect Club). Someone please make a bigger version! This one is about 1:85-1:90.

You might want to check the Cretaceous Collectibles thread then. I revealed two more species for wave 2.

I saw that! Looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

Meanwhile, Jurassic stem-birds!


I don't know who made this mysterious line of Ice Age movie themed miniatures (the box is about 6 cm on each side). There are 52 in the series, so there's some real deep cuts. It's just labeled as "pterodactyl," but, according to an Ice Age Wiki, this guy is a Harpactognathus. As such, roughly 1:15.
Bonus photo:



Favorite Yinlong. Sold with the Guanlong pictured a few spaces down. I wish Favorite's most interesting figures weren't all museum exclusives. I'd love to be able to buy something like this for $12 on Amazon. About 1:10.


PNSO Chungkingosaurus. To my eye, this is the best of PNSO's big vinyl models. I bought the others when they were widely available on Amazon, but apparently now they're all shipping in boxes. Con: it increases the price a bit. Pro: this thing arrived with no paint wear and in beautiful condition. And the box art is worthy of being put on the wall. About 1:7.


Invicta Mamenchisaurus. Sits alongside my Safari Mamenchisaurus for now, because I can't decide between them. PNSO, how about giving us a new one? About 1:45-1:50 for the better preserved specimens (isolated vertebrae suggest they could have been much larger).


Schleich Barapasaurus. There are three main ways a company can make it into my collection. 1) Make the best version of an animal out there. This is what Safari, Favorite, Kaiyodo, and sometimes CollectA do. 2) Make a taxon that nobody else has made. This is a major tactic of CollectA, Kaiyodo, and Yowie. 3) Make a prehistoric fish. Schleich really hit 2) and 3) in 2016. This figure is awful, but I can't just leave a unique sauropod unrepresented in my collection. About 1:30-1:35.


Tyco Brontosaurus (Dino-Riders). I figure CollectA is bound to do a new Brontosaurus before long, now that the genus has been provisionally resurrected. This is the very best placeholder. About 1:17.


CollectA Saurophaganax. Not bad, but as ever, I'd rather it be 1:40. This one is about 1:55-1:60, so roughly to scale with my Happinet Supersaurus, which is a silver lining.


PNSO Proceratosaurus. It tends to list to the right, so occasionally I stick it sideways into a bracket overnight to let gravity reshape its legs. That does the trick for a few weeks. Replaced the slightly larger CollectA version. About 1:20-1:25.


Favorite Guanlong. Purple is a somewhat improbable but obviously not impossible color for a feathered dinosaur, but it sure looks pretty. Replaced the Capcom Expo version. About 1:14.

[Jose S.M.]

Those are really good!I wish the Favorites weren't so hard to  get.

[Georassic]

Amazing collection, my friend. I love how it evolves.
cheers

[Reptilia]

Lucky in terms of paint app?

Yes, for what I can see yours have decently painted teeth. I wish I could check in store this figure, I really don't want to buy it online, but I don't think that it'll be available anytime soon in my area. Or if it will ever be available, to be honest. Thanks for the additional picture too.

[Halichoeres]

Those are really good!I wish the Favorites weren't so hard to  get.

Thanks! Man, so do I.

Amazing collection, my friend. I love how it evolves.
cheers

Thank you very much. It definitely sees some turnover.

[Halichoeres]

Aquatic vertebrates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous!

There's some weird ones in this update.

Actinopterygians: this is the group I study for a living, so if you don't want the two-minute disquisition on their systematics and breeding systems, you can skip this part without offending me.


"Little Critterz" Xiphactinus. I saw this in museum gift shops, on eBay, it just turned up everywhere, but I resisted buying it because it doesn't really fit in with my collection (it's too small and out-of-scale, it's porcelain, etc., etc.). Then, I finally gave in and dropped the $7 to get it. Mere weeks later, CollectA announced their new mini version. The same thing happened when I bought the 2014 CollectA deluxe Deinocheirus--right afterward, CollectA announced an updated version. Either the moral of the story is that I should be more patient, or that I should just never hesitate, because as soon as I buy a mediocre, outdated, or downright crappy figure, a good one will come out.


To abruptly switch gears, these little fish are part of the base for Sideshow's Tylosaurus statue. The review on the blog has a quote from sculptor Jorge Blanco that identifies them as "acanthomorpha (angelfish)." There's a couple things wrong with that. There were no angelfish in the Cretaceous. There WERE acanthomorphs, but not very many--they didn't really dominate reef environments until the Cenozoic. The acanthomorphs known from the Late Cretaceous inland sea included things similar to modern polymixiids and berycids. None of them looks like this, as far as I've seen (if you know an acanthomorph like this from Niobrara, please let me know!). Instead, these look like pycnodonts, which are neopterygians, but probably not teleosts, let alone acanthomorphs. In particular, they are strikingly similar to Arduafrons; alas, that's a genus only known from the Jurassic. The closest thing in the Smoky Hill Chalk is Coelodus. Despite the lack of gar-like scales, for now that's what I'm calling them. Someday I'd love to get in touch with the sculptor and ask him what he used as a reference.


This one has the same shape and fin positions, but it's a lot more colorful. Lots of reef fishes are sequential hermaphrodites. For example, clownfish are famous for their mating system, in which the largest fish becomes a female, while the second-largest becomes the male, while other group members do not breed until one of the two largest dies, whereupon they're "promoted." That's a really unusual system, though, and most sequential hermaphrodites (like many groupers and wrasses) have groups where the largest is a male and all the rest are females, until the male dies. So I'm calling this the male Coelodus, though this would be a very high degree of color dimorphism for a reef fish.

Selachimorphs:


The really lovely shark that accompanies the Sideshow mosasaur. Mr. Blanco identifies it as Squalicorax, and it actually resembles one, more so than other similar-sized sharks from the same formation, like Cretolamna. I bought the statue (my first and only Sideshow) mainly for this shark, and the pycnodonts were a bonus. I didn't examine the configuration of the statue very carefully before I bought it.


I didn't realize Squalicorax attaches directly into the tail of the mosasaur (which I don't display--I don't have the space at home and I don't relish the thought of hauling it to my office) with this obtrusive peg. Oh well, still one of the nicest sharks I own. About 1:20 for a medium-sized specimen.


This is an unspecified "prehistoric shark" from Planeta DeAgostini. It's pretty bad. If you wanted to take it way too literally, you could interpret it as any number of squaliform sharks, based on the absence of an anal fin. Not really much else you can go on, though. It's possible that it makes a cameo in one of the books that makes it clear what it is, but I sure as hell don't have any plans to read them.


Sometimes I take perverse pleasure in the knowledge that I've posted a picture of things that just do not belong together, and have not been photographed together before or since.


"Sharp Edge" from Takara Tomy (Transformers: Beast Wars). Sharp Edge is very obviously a prehistoric sawshark, and not a sawfish--you can tell from the fact that the gill slits are on the side rather than underneath, and from the presence of barbels on the rostrum. This is the first Transformers toy I've ever owned, and I got it just because it's a prehistoric fish, after a fashion. Pristiophorus is known from the Cretaceous straight through to the present, and never exceeds 3 meters, unlike sawfish, which can be gigantic. At that length, this is about 1:11. I'll probably never even transform it.

Sarcopterygians, specifically sauropsids:


Safari Kronosaurus. It's huge! It's actually about the same overall length as the old Carnegie that it replaced, but it's much better-proportioned. About 1:25-1:30 based on a large specimen.


With some of its relatives.


Safari Tylosaurus. Times like these are when I find it really hard to be a one-figure-per-genus collector, because the Carnegie that it replaced is an absolutely beautiful toy. But this one has the tail fluke and the lizardy texture going for it. About 1:55-1:60.


The Mosasaurus is substantially larger than the Tylosaurus, though you wouldn't know it from this picture.

[SBell]

Aquatic vertebrates of the Jurassic and Cretaceous!

There's some weird ones in this update.

Actinopterygians: this is the group I study for a living, so if you don't want the two-minute disquisition on their systematics and breeding systems, you can skip this part without offending me.


"Little Critters" Xiphactinus. I saw this in museum gift shops, on eBay, it just turned up everywhere, but I resisted buying it because it doesn't really fit in with my collection (it's too small and out-of-scale, it's porcelain, etc., etc.). Then, I finally gave in and dropped the $7 to get it. Mere weeks later, CollectA announced their new mini version. The same thing happened when I bought the 2014 CollectA deluxe Deinocheirus--right afterward, CollectA announced an updated version. Either the moral of the story is that I should be more patient, or that I should just never hesitate, because as soon as I buy a mediocre, outdated, or downright crappy figure, a good one will come out.

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

[Halichoeres]

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

Yeah, if I had the FaunaCasts version, I wouldn't have considered buying this one for even half a second (nor would I have bought it if I'd suspected that CollectA would release one). As soon as I have the CollectA in hand, this one will go in my trade thread and/or to eBay. I already have the Bandai cf. Gillicus for the CollectA to choke on.

[SBell]

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

Yeah, if I had the FaunaCasts version, I wouldn't have considered buying this one for even half a second (nor would I have bought it if I'd suspected that CollectA would release one). As soon as I have the CollectA in hand, this one will go in my trade thread and/or to eBay. I already have the Bandai cf. Gillicus for the CollectA to choke on.

I think of that one as more of a Cladocyclus, based on the scale of the figure to the Pteranodon. Of course, I also don't restrict myself to just one figure if it's an animal I like!!

[BlueKrono]

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

Yeah, if I had the FaunaCasts version, I wouldn't have considered buying this one for even half a second (nor would I have bought it if I'd suspected that CollectA would release one). As soon as I have the CollectA in hand, this one will go in my trade thread and/or to eBay. I already have the Bandai cf. Gillicus for the CollectA to choke on.

Consider me interested.

[Halichoeres]

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

Yeah, if I had the FaunaCasts version, I wouldn't have considered buying this one for even half a second (nor would I have bought it if I'd suspected that CollectA would release one). As soon as I have the CollectA in hand, this one will go in my trade thread and/or to eBay. I already have the Bandai cf. Gillicus for the CollectA to choke on.

I think of that one as more of a Cladocyclus, based on the scale of the figure to the Pteranodon. Of course, I also don't restrict myself to just one figure if it's an animal I like!!

I make pretty frequent exceptions to that rule for fish (3×Dunk, 2×Bothriolepis, 2×Eusthenopteron), but only when they're similar in quality. The porcelain Xiphactinus is manifestly not, by my criteria anyhow.

I've also been really tempted on the Critterz Xiphactinus, but as I'm already blessed with the FaunaCasts one ( ), I feel less inclined...and can wait for the CollectA. On the other hand, maybe it can work as some smaller ichthyodectid. Xiphactinus has to choke on something, right?

Yeah, if I had the FaunaCasts version, I wouldn't have considered buying this one for even half a second (nor would I have bought it if I'd suspected that CollectA would release one). As soon as I have the CollectA in hand, this one will go in my trade thread and/or to eBay. I already have the Bandai cf. Gillicus for the CollectA to choke on.

Consider me interested.

Noted! You'll have right of first refusal.

[BlueKrono]

Noted! You'll have right of first refusal.

All right, prima nocta! 

[Halichoeres]

Noted! You'll have right of first refusal.

All right, prima nocta! 

I won't even take off its chastity belt UPC card.