Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy.
As most dinosaur fans that grew up in the 1990s know, Primal Rage from 1994 was a fighting game pitting stop motion animated dinosaurs and apes against each other, with very violent and sometimes bizarre attacks that inevitably led to parental outrage.
Ever since Mattel started making Jurassic World toys collectors have been vocal about wanting a large-scale Triceratops. Of course they would, Triceratops was the largest ceratopsian to ever exist and yet, Mattel’s various Triceratops toys were all woefully undersized.
Thanks to my handy clicker-counter and the DinoToyCollector website I was able to tally up 114 Velociraptor toys by Mattel. This includes various repaints, repacks, and toys outside the mainline but not the minis (I forgot them). It’s a rough estimate but it still gives you an idea of how many raptors Mattel has put out there.
The majority of items in my prehistoric collection are purchased online. Schleich abounds at several brick and mortar stores in my neck of the woods, but I’m not a huge consumer of their wares. Safari Ltd. products are sold at Michael’s and the local natural history museum, but the assortment is always woefully limited.
Pop quiz: which Upper Jurassic dinosaur from the famous Morrison Formation of North America had two rows of large plates on its back and four long spikes on its tail? I reckon the majority of respondents would immediately say that the answer is Stegosaurus, and of course, they wouldn’t be wrong.
Sorry for the absence. I have been gone for some time to take care of personal issues, but never think that I, Emperor Dinobot, have forgotten about you, my dear readers. As you may know, ceratopsians are my favorite group of dinosaurs, and this is evident not just for my love of BOTM’s ceratopsian line, but because I always…I always imagined them as super-large companions.
Mattel really likes the Shaximiao Formation, a middle to late Jurassic formation located in China. They’ve released many dinosaurs known from the Shaximiao, including Chialingosaurus, Gigantspinosaurus, Mamenchisaurus, Gasosaurus, and Yangchuanosaurus.
Now here’s something unprecedented from Mattel. No, not a prehistoric pseudosuchian most people have never heard of. Mattel likes those, and this is that too. What makes this one unique is that it represents an animal that lived during the Cenozoic. The era immediately following the Mesozoic and the one in which we’re currently living.
One of the biggest and admittedly funniest fiascos in paleontological history involved the legendary American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope and the famous plesiosaur Elasmosaurus platyurus. The latter’s fossil remains were first discovered in 1867 in the Pierre Shale Formation of Kansas and formally described by Cope in 1869.
Mattel’s previous large sauropods made sense. Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Dreadnoughtus all had significant screen time in the Jurassic franchise. And even though Mattel dutifully, and shockingly, made toys of them all, fans wanted more.
The chaos continues! Dinosaurs have evolved, and more species are on the loose! This may sound scary, but it does not have to be. The usually docile, bighorn sheep-sized Avaceratops has been spotted at high altitudes, getting comfortable in their modern colder environments.
As the Neovenator pair appears on the scene, the nesting Iguanodons begin rising to their feet and bellowing aggressively. The carnivores pace back and forth rapidly in front of them, jaws snapping and sharp eyes scanning for any discernible weaknesses as they attempt to panic the big herbivores into stampeding.
