During the Late Cretaceous, the subcontinent of India was ruled not by tyrannosaurs, but abelisaurs such as Rajasaurus, Rahiolisaurus, and Indosuchus. The latter is thought to have been anywhere from 7 to 9.7 metres in length, and, unlike most other abelisaurs, appears to have had a relatively longer skull and larger arms.
This little Indosuchus, which comes courtesy of PNSO, goes by the appropriate name of Aishwarya. As you can plainly see, she is sculpted in a resting pose with her mouth closed, her feet placed entirely on the ground and her tail forming an effective tripod. Both her head and the tip of her tail are angled to the left. This makes her about 8 cm long and slightly under 4 cm high.
I really like this pose. I’m likely in the minority here, but I would absolutely love to see more prehistoric figures sculpted in resting poses, whether sitting up like Aishwarya or even lying down and fast asleep. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good active pose as much as the next collector, but I also love variety and realism, and the fact of the matter is that theropods, just like most modern land carnivores, would have spent far more of their lives simply resting rather than fighting or hunting or killing.
Aishwarya’s main colour is teal, which is an unusual but welcome change. Her neck and underbelly are mostly a very light grey, but there’s a splash of yellow on the bottom of her tail and splashes of pink on her chest and at the tip of her muzzle. Her stripes, which range in size from thin ones on her tail to huge ones over her pelvis and back, are dark blue and her tiny eyes are black. Annoyingly, the artist misapplied the black paint on my toy’s left side. I seem to have bad luck that way.
Aishwarya’s hide is covered in relatively large wrinkles. It’s not as impressive a sculpting job as PNSO’s miniature ceratopsians, but it’s still pretty impressive for a theropod toy this small. Despite her relaxed stance, she comes off as quite strong and agile, much like how kangaroos look when they’re resting in tripod stances. Large, sharp teeth are visible on either side of her mouth. As befitting an Indosuchus, her skull is distinctly different from her contemporary Rajasaurus, with a much longer snout and no large hornlets or ridges on her cranium. Indeed, Indosuchus was originally classified as an allosaur back in 1932, then as a tyrannosaur in 1964, but in 1986, it was finally determined to be an abelisaur. Aishwarya’s skull also has something of a shrink-wrapped appearance, unfortunately. And her hands feature five digits, whereas other abelisaur fossils show that they only had four digits. No hand of Indosuchus have been discovered yet, but it it likely that it too numbered four.
Indosuchus is yet another dinosaur that has received very little if any attention in media or toys. Few Indian dinosaurs have, sadly. As such, I think that PNSO deserves our thanks for producing little Aishwarya here. And for the unusual pose she’s in. A pretty good toy on the whole.
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Aishwarya is also a boys name. But I do agree, Indian dinosaurs need more popularity. I could go on and on why dinosaurs from my country need more figures.
Nice review of the indosuchus I congratulate you on it, suspsy.
To be a miniature it is a more than acceptable figure. I would like a larger version of indosuchus from PNSO however this miniature version is quite good.
I join you in liking to see resting poses in models. It adds variety to my collection and it’s something animals do.