Can you detect the tiny ear conches?
A firm from the German Democratic Republic, VEB (Volkseigener Betrieb) Plaho, released a series of highly collectable die casting plastic dinosaur figures in 1967. They were sold in the Museum of Sena in Thuringia, Germany, until the mid-1980s.
Seventy-one million years ago what is now Alberta, Canada, would have been located next to the Western Interior Seaway with various coastal habitats including swamps, marshes, tidal flats, lagoons, and estuaries. Familiar faces would have swum the aquatic ecosystems, including gar, bowfin, and sturgeon that are all present in North America’s freshwater habitats today.
In 1978 (the same year I was born), the fossil remains of a hadrosauriform dinosaur were discovered at Brighstone Bay on the Isle of Wight. The remains were sent to the British Museum of Natural History (now the Natural History Museum) in London and declared to be those of the famous Iguanodon.
PNSO delivered one last surprise for collectors at the very end of 2022, delivering their 67th entry into the Prehistoric Animal lineup with a highly anticipated, superb new rendition of the most complete spinosaurid to date.
The 1990s and 2000s were a boon for paleontology in the southern hemisphere.
Sixty-six million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous, Madagascar had already been an island for about 20 million years. And just as today, the island would have boasted a unique assortment of organisms isolated from most of the outside world. Thanks to fossils preserved in the Maevarano Formation we know the region was home to Beelzebufo, the world’s largest known frog, the theropod Masiakasaurus with it’s strange, forward projecting teeth, the herbivorous crocodylomorph, Siamosuchus, and the 8-meter sauropod, Rapetosaurus.
MPC’s fifth group of prehistoric animals included one truly original mold in the form of Diatryma (ie Gastornis), one of the earliest plastic representations of this icon from the post-Mesozoic age.
During the 1950s and 1960s, interest in paleontology was starting its climb back to mainstream interest, and companies like Marx took the initiative to start producing dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in small plastic fashion for the first time, encouraging kids to create prehistoric worlds in their own homes.
Today, dinosaurs have become a permanent fixture in our pop culture, from toys to multi-million blockbuster movies, dinosaur seems to be everywhere. But there was a time when dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals were confined to the sterile walls of museums, a scientific curiosity that were outside of the mainstream.
This derivative dinosaur toy draws its inspiration from a surprisingly modern and good-quality source; but like all knockoffs, the nature of that “inspiration” might leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.
Knockoffs are an ever-present element of the toy industry, and a persistent quandary for collectors. A knockoff is a product which imitates another, original product, usually without copying it precisely in order to slyly evade copyright infringement.
Haoran is enjoying himself as always when relieving the itches along his colossal body by rubbing against the coarse bark of a far more colossal tree. Seeking to scratch both the top and the bottom of his neck at once, he squeezes it between two thick, knobbly branches and grunts with pleasure at the sensation.
A truly rare genus in the hobby to this day, MPC’s vintage figurine marks a bold move from a company most famous for its imitations – although the toy is perhaps showing its age with some design choices.
MPC (Multiple Products Corporation) is a well-known brand among experienced dinosaur collectors; their prehistoric line from 1961 and 1962 was widely sold through stores and catalogs for decades.
Review and photos by Prehistory Resurrection, edited by Suspsy
Back in 1994, Schleich released its now-discontinued Replica-Saurus line of dinosaur figures, which included perhaps the goofiest, ugliest, and most hideous dinosaur figure ever manufactured, their first Ceratosaurus sculpt, in a quadrupedal stance. It was finally retired in 2005.
