How much should fossil completeness be prioritised when deciding new releases?

[Ravonium]

Basically, should it be heavily prioritised to ensure that new releases are as accurate as possible and able to withstand the test of time more easily, should it be a relatively low priority to ensure room for a wide range of possible speculation and taxonomic variety for new releases, or is your stance somewhere in between?

While this topic seems to have become an increasingly common subject of debate on this forum over the past couple of years or so, I don't think I've seen an individual thread on it yet (if there was then feel free to merge this thread with it mods/admin).

Also, before anyone asks, while the last 6 or so replies here were what initally inspired me to start this thread, I probably wouldn't have gotten the idea to do so if it wasn't for the aformentioned trend I've noticed here regarding this topic.

[Gwangi]

I prefer to see well known taxa get prioritized over more fragmentary remains. That said, if we didn't speculate and fill in the blanks we would have never gotten the Crystal Palace Iguanodon, Agathaumas, Camarasaurus-headed Apatosaurus, marsupial pterosaurs, A. Tobin's Stegosaurus, etc. I think it's interesting to see the progression of science in art as we learn more. For some people, having scientifically obsolete models help illustrate how things have changed is part of the appeal of collecting.

[Stegotyranno420]

Honestly I rather see the obscure, but only to a certain level. No tooth taxa or no ichnogenera. I mean like Rajasaurus,  dacentrurus, saurophaganax, etc, decent amounts. I keep hearing "theres barely any differences". But I rather see genera from other countries. Sometimes theres small differences,  true, but some people may like those differences. Another thing is that I rather see animals from my country get the same fame as those from others, and I believe many others feel the same. For example Stegosaurus may be more complete, but Dacentrurus should have a extra figure or two.
And besides, saying Mapusaurus and Carcharodontosaurus for example, are pretty much the same, is like saying Spanish and Portuguese,  Polish and Russian, Italian and French, Punjabi and Persian, are pretty much the same. No they arent, they are unique.
Am I saying we should abandon making figures of well known animals?
No
Am I saying these people are wrong?
Not at all, they are also right.
All I am just saying is that Rajasaurus for example, should not just be remembered as a Majungasaurus clone with less information. This goes with alot genera. Rajasaurus, infact based on what I know, was the largest predator on a gigantic island that developed a unique ecosystem with thick necked sauropods and horned theropods. And that's cool enough for it to deserve more than one small outdated figure.

[stargatedalek]

It's all situational. Sometimes an animal may only be known from a few elements but those are enough to differentiate its appearance meaningfully.

[ITdactyl]

Depends on the style of the manufacturer.

If it was CollectA's style: "Oh, dinosaurX is cool. Let's release a feathered figure this year. If they find fossils that say it isn't feathered, we'll retire it and release a new figure." - then I don't really mind a figure based off isolated teeth.

If it was Eofauna's style: "This figure is based off a rigorous study of the museum specimen..." - then, yes, the figure better be based off substantial fossils with equally substantial descriptive features.

*disclaimer: the post is meant as a generalization and should not be taken as +/- feedback on the aforementioned companies' strategies.

[Faelrin]

For me I am perhaps willing to slide if the fragmentary remains have substantial skull material, and could safely be inferred from relatives (such as Proceratosaurus, Rajasaurus, perhaps Daemonosaurus, etc). We see this a lot already with ceratopsians for instance, or perhaps the opposite where the skeleton is almost complete except does not have a skull (some sauropods for example). I am not however a fan of fragmentary specimens that do not at least have around 50%-75% of the skeleton or more (from preferably one specimen), and cannot have the rest safely inferred, give or take scrappy skull material, and would definitely not collect figures of things that have scraps of bone (exception has been the Mattel line when I was trying to be a species collector, when I could afford to do so, as Callovosaurus, Siats, Metriacanthosaurus are all examples of this. The upcoming Moros for the JW Dominion and BotM lines are more examples of this).

Edit 09/29: To expand on the above, I would not consider anything that does not have substantial material from the spine, forelimbs, and hind-limbs, and/or the skull as well (particularly for theropods and ornithischians). I cannot be wholly interested in something that I can't get a basic outline from. Something like Dryptosaurus, which has material from the forelimbs, hindlimb, but is missing much of the vertebrae, and much of the skull would not be something I would be too interested in, despite beautiful reconstructions (such as the upcoming BotM one), as with the lack of available material, it would have to be heavily derived from other animals, for better or worse. In comparison, although also pretty fragmentary, I would rank and prioritize its relative Appalachiosaurus a bit more, as although it is missing much of the spine, and forelimbs, has most of the hindlimbs, and skull to work with.

To also add to the above, the formation an animal has been found in is also important to me. As an example I would find Suskityrannus a bit more interesting then the prior two, as it lived alongside Zuniceratops, and (animals that also having partial or fragmentary remains), in the Moreno Hill Formation, has two specimens, has bits of vertebrae from all parts of the spine, has bits of the skull, and most of the hindlimbs. Another example would be Pachycephalosaurus that is known from skull material, which was from the famous Hell Creek formation, and was contemporary to Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Anzu, Ankylosaurus, etc, and has a few relatives with better remains that could be inferred from.

Edit 2 09/29: I also don't have much space, which is another reason I need to be more selective going forward with what genera I want to collect figures of.


There is still a plethora of dinosaurs and other prehistoric/extinct animals that have good remains but do not often get figures if at all. A few quick examples include Herrerasaurus, Gnathovorax, Eodromaeus, Eoraptor, Kulindadromeus, Plateosaurus, Massospondylus, etc. I'll list even more in a bit after I get my notes back up.

Edit: Okay, just for theropods (which typically sell better then ornithischians, etc), here's some more examples, Liliensternus, Sinosaurus, Limusaurus, Eoabelisaurus, Spectrovenator, Majungasaurus, Ekrixinatosaurus, Skorpiovenator, Aucasaurus, Afrovenator, Eustreptospondylus, Asfaltovenator, Yangchuanosaurus, Sinraptor, Neovenator, Suskityrannus, Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Teratophoneus, Ornitholestes, Gallimimus, Ornithomimus, Struthiomimus, Shuuvia, Falcarius, Jianchangosaurus, Beipiaosaurus, Caudipteryx, Corythoraptor, Ambopteryx, Yi, Caihong, Serikornis, Zhenyuanlong, Sinornithosaurus, Saurornitholestes, Utahraptor, etc. There are still many others out there, not counting all the well preserved avialans as well.

[Sim]

Interesting idea for a thread @Ravonium.  I think that for some incompletely known species the missing parts can be narrowed down in appearance enough that, combined with known features of the animal, make them a good choice to make into a figure.  Highly complete remains can make an animal an appealing choice to make into a figure, but for me it depends on whether I find the animal interesting.  Taxonomic variety is important, and I'd like to use the discussion in the thread you linked to, Ravonium, to explain my opinion on this.  My opinion is below:

I agree with @suspsy that the Allosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Concavenator and Carcharodontosaurus shown have a tiring quality to them because they've already been made well by other brands more than once.  However, I also agree with @Faelrin and @GojiraGuy1954 with not wanting to see Zhuchentyrannus, Tyrannotitan, Australovenator and Saurophaganax instead.  All those species lack parts of their skeleton that can't be guessed well enough and makes their appearance unknown.  Having a reconstructed skeleton mount doesn't mean much, just look at the skeletons of Deltadromeus and Gualicho with totally made-up heads for example.  There's no need to resort to making figures of these fantasy species since there are plenty of species that still need good figures and which can be reconstructed reasonably reliably.  Among large theropods Suchomimus immediately springs to mind.  Within allosauroids, Acrocanthosaurus needs a good representation.  Going down in size a bit, Austroraptor still hasn't been made, and Utahraptor lacks an accurate figure.  Among ornithomimosaurs Gallimimus lacks a good figure.  And small species need good representation too, e.g. Buitreraptor and troodontids!  These were just some of the theropods that need a good figure, there's lots more from other groups too, e.g. Chasmosaurus, Centrosaurus, Plateosaurus, Riojasaurus...

[suspsy]

I think the argument that we can't make a strong educated guess about the appearances of all four of those theropods I listed is a pretty weak one. There's zero reason to think that any of them were radically different in appearance from their closest relatives; they weren't like spinosaurids. It's like arguing that we can't guess what many early hominins looked because all we have of them are fragments of skull and mandible. We can tell a great deal about the appearance of an animal from a single fossil bone, especially when we have more complete remains of their closest relatives. In the case of Tyrannotitan, for example, we know for a fact how big its arms and legs were, we have a very good idea of how big its skull and torso were, and we can safely deduce that its skull generally resembled that of Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus. If museums and paleoartists are perfectly comfortable creating restorations of the likes of Tyrannotitan and Zhuchengtyrannus, then toy companies shouldn't have to feel any differently. Indeed, I think it's downright wrong for anyone to insist that these parties should only produce and display genera known from abundant fossil remains.



And if it turns out in the future that Zhuchengtyrannus had larger arms than we thought, or that Tyrannotitan had larger brow ridges, well, so what? That's just the nature of paleontology and it doesn't take from the inherent quality of a skeletal mount by Research Casting International or a painting by Sergey Krasovskiy like the one above or a toy by our favorite company. The 2009 Carnegie Collection Spinosaurus is always going to be a beautiful product regardless of the fact that we now know full well that it's not what the real animal looked like.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Slightly off topic but on these lines @Sim would you say Isisaurus is known from good enough remains in your opinion for a company to male a figure of?

[Sim]

I think the argument that we can't make a strong educated guess about the appearances of all four of those theropods I listed is a pretty weak one. There's zero reason to think that any of them were radically different in appearance from their closest relatives; they weren't like spinosaurids.

I think the argument you've presented here is flawed.  I'll concede that carcharodontosaurids appear to have very similar skulls, so it might be safe to reconstruct Tyrannotitan's skull based on relatives.  For Saurophaganax it's not known if its cheek bones were like those of Allosaurus fragilis or A. jimmadseni.  For Zhuchengtyrannus it's not known if it was built like Tyrannosaurus or Tarbosaurus, or what its head crests were like.  Australovenator is the worst one since it's not known what any adult megaraptoran skull looked like.  Based on the known remains it's also not known how much megaraptoran skulls differed among species.

And if it turns out in the future that Zhuchengtyrannus had larger arms than we thought, or that Tyrannotitan had larger brow ridges, well, so what? That's just the nature of paleontology and it doesn't take from the inherent quality of a skeletal mount by Research Casting International or a painting by Sergey Krasovskiy like the one above or a toy by our favorite company. The 2009 Carnegie Collection Spinosaurus is always going to be a beautiful product regardless of the fact that we now know full well that it's not what the real animal looked like.

I think you're right here to an extent.  In my opinion it's better not to reconstruct something when you can't make a strong educated guess and the result would be pure fantasy, e.g. Deltadromeus and Gualicho with completely made-up heads.  I also feel certain interesting groups well-represented by fossil remains lack good figure representation e.g. troodontids and prosauropods, and it would be much better to make figures of those instead of very speculative figures representing a group with lots of good figures e.g. allosauroids and tyrannosauroids.

Finally, Saurophaganax, Zhuchengtyrannus and Tyrannotitan don't have their own identity, their reconstructions are basically a close relative instead.  So I don't see a point to making figures of them in most cases, and they are different from Spinosaurus and Cryolophosaurus for example which have distinctive identities even though they are known from fragmentary remains.  There's no shortage of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals with distinctive appearances that lack adequate figure representation so I don't think it's necessary to resort to making fantasy species for the sake of diversity.  Even among the well-represented groups you suggested species from, allosauroids and tyrannosauroids, there are still species that deserve a good figure e.g. Gorgosaurus, Albertosaurus, Xiongguanlong, Daspletosaurus horneri, Acrocanthosaurus.

Slightly off topic but on these lines @Sim would you say Isisaurus is known from good enough remains in your opinion for a company to male a figure of?

@Gothmog the Baryonyx, as far as I've seen, Isisaurus has uncertain proportions and its head is unknown.  So I personally wouldn't consider its remains good enough.

[Concavenator]

I've been wondering about this for a while, but could anyone here assess how complete Dilophosaurus is?

I know there's the 2020 paper that features the description of new individuals but honestly, I know so little about anatomy that unless I get to see a rigorous skeletal showing the preserved remains, I don't really get to understand a taxon's completeness (even though I'm a biologist, I'm more specialized in biochemistry and molecular biology and I personally don't find anatomy to be very interesting). And I've been looking for that sort of skeletals but haven't found none for this species post-2020 paper.

I've always liked Dilophosaurus but I'm now focused in collecting figures of prehistoric animals with decent fossil remains and was wondering about how this taxon fares in that respect. I do know the actual shape of the crest is unknown, and that more remains have been found too, but not sure of its overall completeness. I really like the Cyberzoic Dilophosaurus but the uncertainty about the crest shape worries me a little, however depending on how complete the postcrania is then maybe I could get away with it.

[Concavenator]

BTW, really good idea for a thread, I was thinking of creating a similar one before I knew about this one.

In my opinion, taxa known from decent fossil remains should prevail over fragmentary ones for 3 main reasons:

1) They're safer to reconstruct.
2) As a result, the risk of becoming outdated, while present, is lower.
3) By itself a taxon having relatively complete fossil remains is a rarity and that alone is valuable, not to mention the taxa with the best remains often end up being the most taxonomically relevant ones.

When it comes to making figures of poorly known animals, there are 3 cases that are more justified, in my opinion:

1) Animals that despite having little fossil material, have a distinctive appearance (i.e. Cryolophosaurus, Jakapil, Spinosaurus...)
2) Animals that hold a clear historic value (as in scientific value, not just being famous for appearing in X media) (i.e. Megalosaurus, Hadrosaurus, Dromaeosaurus, Dryptosaurus...)
3) Animals who belong to a group that literally have 0 known members with adequate remains (i.e. megaraptorans...) and even in that case, fossil completeness should prevail. This case is really rare as usually even groups that are known from mostly fragmentary material have their own 1 or few exceptions here and there.

Now you might be wondering, how do you think point 3) is even reasonable? Well, for sure they are not safe to reconstruct at all, but if you ask me, I personally find those creatures more interesting than fragmentary taxa that belong to groups known from good remains. Something like a figure of a fragmentary tyrannosaurid, hadrosaurid, or dromaeosaurid feels quite pointless in my opinion, unless they have some strong historical background behind, like I said. So I'd personally take a figure of a Megaraptor instead of a Zhuchengtyrannus, even if reconstructing the latter is comparatively easier. If new remains for both are found, any current reconstruction will likely be rendered outdated anyways...

[GojiraGuy1954]

If a fragmentary genus has a more complete relative that can be used an alternative, it should most of the time be made instead.

E.g. Stegosaurus over Wuerhosaurus.

[Halichoeres]

Actinopterygian fish, being smaller on average than dinosaurs, and living in a more fossilization-prone environment, are more likely to be preserved completely. Ergo, they should nearly always be preferred over dinosaurs when deciding what to make a toy of. Sorry, this argument is airtight (watertight?) and you can't disagree with it in an intellectually honest way.

[Concavenator]

@GojiraGuy1954 yeah that's basically it. What happens in that case is that Stegosaurus is also way more popular than Wuerhosaurus and so it gets made a lot more, but companies always go for Therizinosaurus instead of the more complete Nothronychus (which is mainly based on).

@Halichoeres I used dinosaurs in my post as an example, but for me the same logic applies for other groups as well. As to what you said, truthfully I can't argue with that!

[Lynx]

Basically, should it be heavily prioritised to ensure that new releases are as accurate as possible and able to withstand the test of time more easily, should it be a relatively low priority to ensure room for a wide range of possible speculation and taxonomic variety for new releases, or is your stance somewhere in between?

While this topic seems to have become an increasingly common subject of debate on this forum over the past couple of years or so, I don't think I've seen an individual thread on it yet (if there was then feel free to merge this thread with it mods/admin).

Also, before anyone asks, while the last 6 or so replies here were what initally inspired me to start this thread, I probably wouldn't have gotten the idea to do so if it wasn't for the aformentioned trend I've noticed here regarding this topic.

No. I don't like it at all when companies are too afraid for speculation and ignore fragmentary species or go for a pretty boring design. Most remarks I have made about PNSO are because of this.

In my opinion, "as accurate as possible" stands the test of time WORSE than open speculation. Take for example the PNSO 2019 Spinosaurus. It was "as accurate as possible" but stood the test of time very poorly.

Meanwhile, Schleichs 2019 Spinosaurus, which decided to go for a thick paddle-like tail as a speculative feature, ended up remaining up-to-date, or at least way more than almost all of the "as accurate as possible" spinosaurus before it.


Even if a speculative design doesn't get that lucky, it's still a figure that brings attention to the species and a creative design few have done before. It's a breath of fresh air. That's why I like it when fragmentary species are done or a speculative design is made. You will never get to learn, never get to expand, and will be slapped down as outdated in a year or two if you stick to what's well-known and never grow the concept.


To put it short, it should not be prioritized, and I hope it never will be. Call me crazy, as I'm also a person who thinks Schleich is better than PNSO, but variety, speculation, and design is always more important than accuracy, in my opinion.

[Halichoeres]

Heh, I was mostly joking, but my more serious take on this is:

I'm more interested in variety than absolute fidelity. So for me, the priority goes:

1 (highest priority): An organism that doesn't have any figures and is known from good body fossils.
2: An organism that only has very inaccurate or cartoony figures and is known from good body fossils.
3: An organism that doesn't have any figures and is known from mediocre or even poor body fossils.
4: An organism that has lots of figures, but all are outdated in some substantial way.
5: An ichnotaxon or tooth taxon.
6: An organism that has lots of figures, but all are outdated in some trivial way. I can still care about Carnotaurus leg proportions, but I cannot make myself care about the arrangement of its 'feature scales.'
7. The Cretaceous mushroom Gondwanagaricites
8: Triceratops.
.
500: Any of the more generic carcharodontosaurids.
.
7000: Spinosaurus specifically.
.
.
.
.
10^9: Tyrannosaurus specifically.

[GojiraGuy1954]

@GojiraGuy1954 yeah that's basically it. What happens in that case is that Stegosaurus is also way more popular than Wuerhosaurus and so it gets made a lot more, but companies always go for Therizinosaurus instead of the more complete Nothronychus (which is mainly based on)

I would say Theri on its own in an interesting enough animal for figures to be made of it, though. Longest claws in history isn't a feat to sneeze at.

[Faelrin]

As with the discussion with the recent PNSO releases, Therizinosaurus is from the Nemegt formation, like Deinocheirus and Tarbosaurus. So it does offer the advantage to anyone interested in collecting animals from specific formations. It's one of the famous big three from there. Therizinosaurus is probably one of the few fragmentary animals I make an exception for that reason. We also have parts from many of its close relatives to fill in the gaps for its general proportions, along with the described arms and feet it has. Hopefully we'll be lucky to find a better preserved specimen some day, considering Deinocheirus had that luck, not once, but twice.