“Greetings and salutations once again, fellow dinosaur lovers! It is I, the one and only Dr. Bella Bricking, along with my trusty and ever-faithful companion, Beth Buildit! And today is a truly momentous occasion, is it not?”
“Yup, sure is, Doc. Exactly 30 years ago, a certain little movie called Jurassic Park opened in theatres worldwide and basically blew up right from the get-go.
Following up on last year’s Tyrannocon Rex vs JP93 set, Hasbro has revealed a second Jurassic Park-inspired Transformers Collaborative two-pack. Behold the vicious Decepticon Dilophocon vs the mighty (or perhaps not so much) Autobot JP12!
As you can see, Dilophocon transforms from a venom-spitting, frilled Dilophosaurus to a robot warrior armed with a heavy laser blaster.
My introduction to Estemmenosuchus came from the 1994 episode of Paleo-World titled “Tail of a Sail”, which was about Dimetrodon and other synapsids, their evolution, and how they relate to mammals. Estemmenosuchus was only featured briefly via images of its skull and a couple pieces of paleoart but that was enough for me to become enamored with this animal and to help broaden my appreciation for prehistoric life beyond the Mesozoic.
Many of the most vibrantly coloured vertebrates living on the planet today are reptiles, particularly squamates such as the gold dust day gecko, the collared lizard, the rainbow boa, and the eastern coral snake. Certain testudines including the red-eared slider, the eastern box turtle, and the northern river terrapin also feature bold patterning and coloration.
Review and photos by Kikimalou, edited by Suspsy
An emblematic figure of prehistory, almost as much as the Tyrannosaurus rex, the woolly mammoth has survived many extinctions in the toy world. The first versions are probably those cast in lead by CBG Mignot and in composition by Chilau.
My sincere thanks to Happy Hen Toys for furnishing this review sample.
Several other companies have made Mapusaurus figures before, including Bandai, Playmates, and CollectA. So far, however, we’ve only reviewed CollectA’s four (!!!) versions on the blog. A brief re-introduction might be useful, then: Mapusaurus hails from the Huincul Formation (English approximation: “ween-COOL”) in Argentina, just like its recently described relative Meraxes and the famous Argentinosaurus.
Relative newcomer Haolonggood has been on something of a role these last two months, unveiling a series of highly impressive prehistoric figures, each one available in two different colour schemes, that easily rival anything from the other companies. Here’s hoping that this happy trend continues, and that Haolonggood gets wider distribution!
