The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Shonisaurus]

@Halichoeres Of course the baryonyx, Neovenator of Favorite and Iguanodon de Collecta make a very good trio. I like as above all to delight in your collection the detailed description you make of each figure. Year of manufacture, sculptor, geological age. It is a luxury to see your collection for that reason among others.

I enjoy with people like you versed in the knowledge of paleontology and biology that for me, unfortunately in my case is null.

[Sim]

I enjoyed reading your comments for the Favorite Baryonyx and Neovenator!   Cool photo of those two figures with the CollectA Iguanodon!

[Halichoeres]

Thank you both! I'm glad you find the extra information useful, Shonisaurus! I've learned a lot about paleontology from this forum, so if I can pay that forward in some small way, I'm very happy to do so.

This figure should have been in the previous post, but I'd forgotten it was in the mail and posted the other ones before it turned up.


Vitae Wuerhosaurus homheni
Scale: 1:35
Sculptor: Cheung Chung Tat
Released: 2018
Hauterivian of Eurasia
This is a very nice figure of one of the latest and largest stegosaurs. The plates probably weren't shaped like this in life, and only appear this way in the fossil due to postmortem damage. Still, huge improvement on the CollectA version that it replaced. I ordered it from AliExpress and it reached me in a couple of weeks. Remember, kids, friends don't let friends pay MonsterHouseHK's outrageous shipping costs.


With Papo Acrocanthosaurus for scale. They obviously would never have met, separated by millions of years and an ocean.

[Faelrin]

Wow. What a gorgeous little stegosaur figure. I have to wonder how that would look alongside Safari Ltd's new Stegosaurus. They might make quite a pair (even if separated by time maybe and an ocean at least).

[Shonisaurus]

I am very happy that Vitae has made this rare figure of Stegosaurus, the wuerhosaurus of Vitae is the largest I know and the best elaborated, since I have apart from this one the PNSO and the Collecta (I hope in the latter case an improved reissue of this weird dinosaur with plates).

[Halichoeres]

Wow. What a gorgeous little stegosaur figure. I have to wonder how that would look alongside Safari Ltd's new Stegosaurus. They might make quite a pair (even if separated by time maybe and an ocean at least).

I'll be sure to take a photo when I get the new Stego; luckily they'll be to scale with one another! Now we just need somebody to make a nice 1:35 Tuojiangosaurus.

[Shonisaurus]

Wow. What a gorgeous little stegosaur figure. I have to wonder how that would look alongside Safari Ltd's new Stegosaurus. They might make quite a pair (even if separated by time maybe and an ocean at least).

I'll be sure to take a photo when I get the new Stego; luckily they'll be to scale with one another! Now we just need somebody to make a nice 1:35 Tuojiangosaurus.

The tuojiangosaurus is a figure I believe that one day a dinosaur company should perform. I do not know if there is still one in the dinosaur toy market, in large size.

[Halichoeres]

I've been slacking on this thread! Here are some Cretaceous and Jurassic osteichthyans.


Safari Ltd Carnotaurus sastrei
Scale: 1:30
Sculptor: Doug Watson
Released: "2019"
Maastrichtian of South America
Like a car company, Safari has a model year that differs from the actual year. I was torn on this one at first, since the Papo is 1:40 (which I typically prefer) and is also one of Papo's best pieces. But the legs, lips, and lack of articulation sealed the deal. This piece is better than its promo pics, if anything.


Alongside another big theropod from roughly the same place, but quite a bit earlier, CollectA's Mapusaurus.


Favorite Koshisaurus katsuyama (Dinosaur Mini Models)
Scale: 1:30-1:35
Sculptor: Kazunari Araki
Released: 2018
Barremian of Eurasia
The holotype is probably a juvenile, so if this is construed as a full adult the scale would be a little smaller, more like 1:40. Really nice to get a release that's half ornithopods, and while the face is gaunt, it's not as shrink-wrapped as Favorite's other mini dinosaurs.


Favorite Fukuisaurus tetoriensis (Dinosaur Mini Models)
Scale: 1:50
Sculptor: Kazunari Araki
Released: 2018
Barremian of Eurasia
I could be wrong, but I think every Fukuisaurus figure except the ones for Dinosaur King has been sculpted by Araki. I still have the larger museum-exclusive model by Favorite, and I used to have the resin piece from Kaiyodo for the same museum, and those were both Araki too. Anyway, looks like Favorite is going to do every dinosaur known from Japan, because they left a telltale gap in their product numbering that I think will be Fukuivenator. Then they'll pretty much be done; almost everything else is a nomen nudum so far.


It's been a pretty good year for iguanodontian ornithopods (although they're still outnumbered by T***nnosaurus figures, naturally).


Spirellity Creations Bawitius
Scale: 1:20
Cenomanian
Tough to get actinopterygian toys, and there's never been a member of this clade (Cladistia, the sister group to all other living actinopterygians--think of this as about as diverged from other reptiles as turtles are, or as diverged from other mammals as monotremes are). So I went for this little plush keychain, chasing a tip from @SBell. It's actually just printed on the fabric, none of the fins is sewn on or anything like that. I probably wouldn't have bought almost any other taxon in this form, but it's a weird enough creature that I was willing to go for it. But honestly a plain old Polypterus figurine would be an equally good/equally bad stand-in. We don't know what Bawitius looked like, but there's a good chance it didn't look just like a scaled-up Polypterus.


Vitae Sinraptor dongi
Scale: 1:35
Sculptor: Cheung Chung Tat
Released: 2018
Upper Jurassic Eurasia
This is more accurate to the proportions of Sinraptor than the Carnegie version, as far as I can tell. It's a boring allosauroid, like all of Vitae's theropods so far. At least they've balanced that with some interesting taxa, although I'm most excited about their upcoming marine reptiles. This figure is probably their worst so far. The jaw doesn't fit right so it has this weird fleshy Joker grin. The texturing also recalls burlap more than skin. They can do better and probably will.


Looks better, in terms of scale, with the forest scene than the Microraptor ever did.

[SBell]

Glad to help @Halichoeres! I tend to agree--most of the time I'd skip printed plush, but it's a polypterid!

Although there are some nice modern bichirs too. The B @brandem  one for my store is of course the best! And the only one that isn't P. endlicheri!

[Halichoeres]

Glad to help @Halichoeres! I tend to agree--most of the time I'd skip printed plush, but it's a polypterid!

Although there are some nice modern bichirs too. The B @brandem  one for my store is of course the best! And the only one that isn't P. endlicheri!

I do have one of those Polypterus. But what the world really needs is Fukangichthys, the only stem-group cladistian whose appearance is reasonably well-known!

On another note, with the replacement of the Papo Carnotaurus and the Carnegie Sinraptor, my "Victims of Progress" album on Flickr now contains over 100 figures that have departed my collection.

[Shonisaurus]

Thanks for the pictures Halichoeres the carnotaurus of Safari is much better than in the photos and promotional videos. I hope to receive it if there is luck in January or February when it is marketed in Europe.

Regarding Vitae's sinraptor, although I'm a fan of monochrome or realistic colors, I have to confess that its colors are a bit muted, they could have decorated it with realistic paint but with brighter details.

Regarding this year's Favorite miniatures in this case the katsuyama and the fukuiraptor, I can attest that they are a metaphorically speaking caprice, they are very well elaborated miniatures even better than their Favorite miniatures of 2017.

I congratulate you Halichoeres for your beautiful collection.

[Halichoeres]

New Triassic tetrapods!


Safari Prestosuchus chiniquensis
Scale: 1:20
Sculptor: Doug Watson
Released: 2019, nominally
The coolest 2019 Safari release, and I'll brook no argument on that point. Triassic animals get released in an agonizing trickle (whereas we are quite flooded with Cretaceous theropods and ceratopsians). 1:20 is the scale in which the Triassic is best-represented (and best represented, too), so this is an ideal addition. It's to scale with the very pretty if outdated Postosuchus, although my copy is in storage and hence couldn't be here for picture day.


But Prestosuchus can harass my Dawn of the Dinosaurs Exaeretodon. Take that, stem-mammals!


Play Visions Gerrothorax
Scale: 1:15-1:20
Released: 1998
My Play Visions collection is complete! (I only have 8 figures from them, but those 8 are all the figures I ever wanted.) This is also the last temnospondyl on my wish list. I actually got this back in July, but that's how slowly Triassic figures come out--I had to wait until now to have anything else Triassic to go with it (I don't like posting for just one figure). Hopefully later this year PNSO will supplement all our Triassic shelves.


Then maybe this scene will look a lot richer!

[Shonisaurus]

Magnificent acquisitions Halichoeres, the prestosuchus of Safari 2019 looks magnificent. It is much better than the promotional photo as I always say in almost all the figures of prehistoric toy animals and I am certain that having it physically will vary positively as a figure is even better.

I congratulate you on the Play Visions gerrothorax the prehistoric animals of Play Visions are an obsession that I have recorded in my brain fortunately I have all the prehistoric amphibians of this brand. Step over the rest of figures of Bullyland and Safari that are just as good as all those mentioned. Thanks for sharing.

[Roselaar]

Fabulous new additions, Hali! Glad you finally managed to get yourself a Gerrothorax.

Loving the new safaris! That Prestosuchus sure is gorgeous...

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Great new additions, that Prestosuchus looks mighty pretty.

[Halichoeres]

Thanks, everyone! This new Prestosuchus is hands-down the nicest stem-crocodile on the market right now.

[Halichoeres]

Two Paleozoic bilaterians, one very mysterious, one not so much.


Trilobiti Design Tullimonstrum gregarium
Scale: 1:1-1:3
Sculptor: Kuo Chien-Hung
Painted by: Luca Vergerio
Released: 2018
Upper Carboniferous
Tullimonstrum has been getting a lot of attention since the papers proclaiming it a vertebrate came out. Too bad those papers were probably wrong, since they influenced reconstructions to incorporate lamprey features that this animal likely didn't have. This is still an attractive model, but I'd like to see one interpreted more as a protostome. It was initially sold as 1:10, but that would be tiny. Now the web site bills it as 1:1, which is about right for an average sized individual, but it could be 1:3 for a very large specimen.

Its base is also pretty special, incorporating some sponges and a bivalve.

At first I thought it was a scallop, which would have been anachronistic, but I looked at the bivalves of Mazon Creek and it turns out to have been a distant relative closer to oysters, known as Aviculopecten. Really well-researched model incorporating other fauna of the same time and place. And it's so rare to get stuff from the Carboniferous.


With the only other Carboniferous animal I own at this scale, Echinochimera, known from the slightly earlier Bear Gulch limestone.

[bmathison1972]

I just ordered the Trilobiti Hallucigenia. I would like the Tully Monster too, but they are too expensive to get two at once.

[Ravonium]

First off, congrats on acquiring this model It is nice to see someone else producing a Tullimonstrum, even if it brings nothing new to the table in terms of reconstruction.

Secondly, nice to see that the makers not only did their research on what animals lived alongside Tullimonstrum, but also included an example of convergent evolution in the process 

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Whilst there aren't exactly loads of figures of Tullimonstrum, this is definitely the best. Kuo Chien-Hung has succeeded in creating a majestic and realistic looking animal. Congrats on your acquisition.