PNSO Scale Thread

[Dinoguy2]

I don't have a whole lot of PNSO figures, but I was trying to work out the actual scales of their newer ones and I figured I'd compile my results here as I went in case anybody is interested. Note that I prefer to scale based on a single element (skull, femur, etc.) rather than based on length estimates which often seem to basically be just spitballed even in official papers. I understand the complaint that there could be a range of sizes, especially for species known from single specimens, so I will give a range rounded up and down to the nearest 5 for each one (this should also compensate for any measurement errors I made myself).

Nemicolopterus (mini): 1:1
Anchiornis (mini) - 1:3
Odontochelys (mini) - 1:6
Tianyulong (mini) - 1:6
Atopodentatus - 1:10
Boralopelta - 1:20-1:25
Corythosaurus - 1:20-1:25
Machairoceratops - 1:20-1:25
Pachycephalosaurus - 1:20-1:25
Pinacosaurus - 1:20-1:25
Sauropelta - 1:20-1:25
Tuojiangosaurus - 1:20-1:25
Ankylosaurus - 1:25-1:30
Lambeosaurus - 1:25-1:30
Nanotyrannus - 1:25-1:30
Pachyrhinosaurus - 1:25-1:30
Sinoceratops - 1:25 - 1:30
Triceratops 2021 - 1:25 - 1:30
Atopodentatus (mini) - 1:30
Miragaia - 1:30-1:35
Tarbosaurus - 1:30-1:35
Stegosaurus v.1 - 1:35-1:40

I will add more as I get them.

[SidB]

I find this quite useful - look forward to your future measurements.

[Dinoguy2]

Updated with Miragaia, Sauropelta, and Machairoceratops.

[SidB]

D @Dinoguy2 , I suppose that you may not have had an opportunity to precisely measure the colossal Huanghetitan yet, but I'm wondering if you could give an educated guess as to its scale. Different estimates as to its size have appeared here on the DTF: !/35 and 1/20. Now that's quite a differential - which do you suspect is closer to reality?

[Dinoguy2]

D @Dinoguy2 , I suppose that you may not have had an opportunity to precisely measure the colossal Huanghetitan yet, but I'm wondering if you could give an educated guess as to its scale. Different estimates as to its size have appeared here on the DTF: !/35 and 1/20. Now that's quite a differential - which do you suspect is closer to reality?

I think it would be tricky to get a reasonable scale for something that fragmentary. Length estimates for these scraposaurus giga titanosaurs tend to vary widely due to completely unknown neck and tail proportions. Looking at known material I guess the best bet would be to scale for sacrum length and then try to guesstimate where that is on the figure. Can you get a measurement of the approximate length of the hip bones? The sacrum would be a little less than that (being generous, maybe the ilium is up to 2x as long as the sacrum). Based on this, the sacrum is about 1m long, so they hip / ilium would be about 2m long. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716052429/http://www.sinofossa.org/show.asp?Id=149

[SidB]

D @Dinoguy2 , I suppose that you may not have had an opportunity to precisely measure the colossal Huanghetitan yet, but I'm wondering if you could give an educated guess as to its scale. Different estimates as to its size have appeared here on the DTF: !/35 and 1/20. Now that's quite a differential - which do you suspect is closer to reality?

I think it would be tricky to get a reasonable scale for something that fragmentary. Length estimates for these scraposaurus giga titanosaurs tend to vary widely due to completely unknown neck and tail proportions. Looking at known material I guess the best bet would be to scale for sacrum length and then try to guesstimate where that is on the figure. Can you get a measurement of the approximate length of the hip bones? The sacrum would be a little less than that (being generous, maybe the ilium is up to 2x as long as the sacrum). Based on this, the sacrum is about 1m long. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716052429/http://www.sinofossa.org/show.asp?Id=149

My challenge is that I don't own the figure, so I'm limited to the coarse measurements given in the product description. I did a rough "guesstimate" a while back, based on these and it was in the 1/35 range, but others have asserted it to be closer to 1/20, which is far too far out of my collecting scale range of 1/30 to 1/45.

[Dinoguy2]

Just a quick update, I got Gavn in hand this week so I was able to double check the measurements I was relying on other's to report and make sure I'm measuring things in a standard way and double check using other proportions. I measured the distance between the largest shoulder spikes as about 4.5cm linear. Using the diagrams and scale bars in the paper, in the real specimen this distance is 110cm (both measurements are linear, not accounting for curvature which I can't get in the 2D diagram obviously). So that comes out to almost exactly 1:25 scale. My previous estimate of 1:20 scale was based on skull length. So, either Gavin's head is a little too big or the skull measurement in the paper is also linear, not around the dome of the skull (more likely). I still am leaving it as 1:20-1:25 due to this and also because it's slightly less than 1:25, so this is the standard wiggle room allowance.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Which element did you use to scale the Pachyrhinosaurus may I ask?

[Dinoguy2]

Which element did you use to scale the Pachyrhinosaurus may I ask?

"Face" (parietal to snout) length. I didn't use skull length because the frill seems to be too upright in the PNSO model so that would throw off the measurements a bit. It seems to be mostly based on the P. lakustai holotype so I scaled to that specimen.

A lot of people seem to portray Pachyrhinosaurus much, much larger than a typical specimen would suggest based only on the Drumheller specimen of C. canadensis. But once again, as with Triceratops, that specimen is BOTH gigantic and super weirds looking compared to typical specimens. Isometric scaling ruins scale models.

[KeU]

Awesome, was going to ask for the Pachyrhinosaurus calculations myself.
Thank you!

Any plans to do one for Corythosaurus?

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Thank you for that it is very helpful. And thank you for this undertaking in general.

[Dinoguy2]

Awesome, was going to ask for the Pachyrhinosaurus calculations myself.
Thank you!

Any plans to do one for Corythosaurus?

No problem! I don't plan to buy the Corythosaurus at the moment, but I know figuring out the scale will be tricky given the proportion issues. The head will likely be a different scale from the body.

[Halichoeres]

I'm measuring the Corythosaurus today. It is a little tricky in fact.

[KeU]

I'm measuring the Corythosaurus today. It is a little tricky in fact.

I can help too.
But will need guidance on what to measure.

[Dinoguy2]

I'm measuring the Corythosaurus today. It is a little tricky in fact.

I can help too.
But will need guidance on what to measure.

Most helpful would be skull length, approximate femur length, and total length (along spine curvature). I think skull length will be off because it's too big, but total and femur should agree if the other proportions are ok

[KeU]

Using centimeters....

Skull length (measured straight, not along curves)
4cm to back of main skull
4.4cm to back of crest

Left Femur
6cm to the top of hip

Right Femur
6cm as well

Total Length (measured follow top curve)
33.5cm

[Dinoguy2]

Using centimeters....

Skull length (measured straight, not along curves)
4cm to back of main skull
4.4cm to back of crest

Left Femur
6cm to the top of hip

Right Femur
6cm as well

Total Length (measured follow top curve)
33.5cm

Thanks for the measurements! From what I can tell by the papers and diagrams I have, the "classic" Corythosaurus skull on which the PNSO figure is clearly based is about 80cm not including crest. The femur is about 110cm. I'm not sure what you mean by to the top of the hip, is that just the top of the ilium or to the "withers", which would include a decent amount of neural spine height?

Based on skull, the PNSO model would be 1:20. However the skull is clearly too large. Total length along the curvature of a real, large Corythosaurus is between 8 and 9 m. Based on that the PNSO would be 1:25.

So, the figure seems like it's basically a 1:25 scale model with a 1:20 scale head.

[KeU]

Thanks for the measurements! From what I can tell by the papers and diagrams I have, the "classic" Corythosaurus skull on which the PNSO figure is clearly based is about 80cm not including crest. The femur is about 110cm. I'm not sure what you mean by to the top of the hip, is that just the top of the ilium or to the "withers", which would include a decent amount of neural spine height?
Based on skull, the PNSO model would be 1:20. However the skull is clearly too large. Total length along the curvature of a real, large Corythosaurus is between 8 and 9 m. Based on that the PNSO would be 1:25.
So, the figure seems like it's basically a 1:25 scale model with a 1:20 scale head.

Thanks for the scaling information!
For my femur measurement, it was from the front of the knee to the top of the hips.
Not sure how to describe it, but it is pretty pronounced, and lower than the neural spines.

[Halichoeres]

S @SidB Based on the scapula and a cervical rib, I estimate the scale of the Huanghetitan at about 1:18.

[SidB]

Ha! That's a lot bigger than I'd originally figured. Good, that makes up my mind - too big for my collections. Thanks for the info @ halichoeres .