Review and photographs by Funk, edited by Suspsy
Can there ever be too many Tyrannosaurus toys? Chap Mei didn’t think so, and made several versions, that, while they differed in colouration and other details, all seem to have taken most of their anatomical cues from the way this genus was portrayed in the Jurassic Park franchise.
Time has eventually come, for one of the most impressive CollectA figures of 2020 to hit the European continent. And fittingly, it represents a European species.
In 2006 paleontologists Jerzy Dzik, Tomasz Sulej and Grzegorz Niedźwiedzki discovered large bones in a clay pit in Poland.
As a volcanic island chain, Hawaii is not known for it’s ancient fossil fauna, but it has a selection of modern extinct species. The ‘O’ o (or Moho, based on the scientific name) were a group of birds that were native to Hawaii, now all extinct, the last being recent enough to have recordings of it’s mating call (worth hearing, though prepare to be moved to tears).
Where abelisaurids are concerned the genus Majungasaurus is second in popularity only to Carnotaurus. It has a few things working in its favor. It lived at the very end of the Cretaceous period in what is now Madagascar and was the dominant predator of its ecosystem.
Review and photos by Faelrin, edited by Suspsy
The fauna of the Triassic period was highly diverse with many new branches of life, including those that would soon dominate the globe from the Mesozoic onwards, particularly the archosaurs. Early dinosaurs and pterosaurs themselves aside, perhaps one of the most popular of those Triassic era archosaurs is none other than Postosuchus, having been put in the spotlight thanks to the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs series in which it featured many years ago.
In spite of their fame and importance to biostratigraphy, trilobites rarely ever get models made of them, outside of toobs and box sets with other Palaeozoic creatures. This year it seems CollectA is tackling the common creatures of the past that rarely get figures.
Some more unboxings to catch up on including an unusual Monster in my Pocket depicting ‘Compsognathus corallestris‘ (figure subsequently received a written review on the blog here), several mystery critters, a bunch of Weetos cereal dinosaurs, and an Ichthyosaurus gift from Safari Ltd sculptor Doug Watson (figure reviewed here).
Title graphics by Patrx
Part 3 of 4 – Large Play visions Prehistoric mammals
Dust funnels swept across the dry and hot landscape. It’s been months since the last rain and the vegetations, once lush, has now turned brown. Animals that inhabit this environment are under tremendous stress as they seek out food and shelter from the exhausting heat.
When anatomist Richard Harlan was presented with the fossil remains of a huge marine creature in 1834, he thought it must have been a reptile like Plesiosaurus or Mosasaurus, and therefore bestowed upon it the name Basilosaurus, “king lizard.” But when Sir Richard Owen later examined the teeth, he noted their double-rooted nature, which is a signature of mammals.
The Dodo has quite the reputation among extinct animals, but the image has always been a bit skewed. Most portarits are based either on third or fourth hand accounts, and most European depictions are from obese specimens kept by gentry that didn’t know how to care for them properly.
Although first described in 1966 the crocodyliforme Sarcosuchus didn’t really achieve popularity until the mid 90’s through early 00’s, with additional discoveries by Paul Sereno and publicity via National Geographic. Since then Sarcosuchus has gone on to become, perhaps, the most popular extinct crocodyliforme of them all.
One day while driving to work, I passed a billboard that had Blue on it and saw that it was an advertisement for Jurassic World live Tour. I didn’t know what it was but as my kids are big Jurassic Park/World fans, I decided it might be worth going to.
