Review and photographs by Takama, edited by amargasaurus cazaui and Suspsy
On August 11 2014, I made a discovery that took the dinosaur toy community by storm. For those of you who are new, that discovery was finding the first of the newly rebooted Battat line of dinosaurs called “The Dan LoRusso Collection,” which at the time consisted of four species that are available for purchase at Target stores throughout the USA. Since then, some of the original Boston Museum of Science models have been re-released for the line in new paint schemes, and Dan LoRusso became a true friend to me in the dinosaur toy community. Before his untimely death last September, we discussed what animals were doable for the line, and what was to come after the very last batch of new sculpts was released. Among these figures were Yutyrannus, Majungasaurus, and Plateosaurus, which he only just started the last time I spoke to him. To see the armatures of these three models please see the thread about the future for Battat on The Dinosaur Toy Forum.
After the news of his death, I was wondering whether or not Battat would continue the line without him, and so I focused all of my dinosaur toy needs on Safari Ltd and my friendship with sculptor Doug Watson. Recently, I was browsing at a not-so-local Target and I found a repainted Parasaurolophus among a herd of Pachyrhinosaurus on the shelves. It’s this model’s distinctive color scheme that gave me a beacon of hope that the line may continue until all of the repaints and un-released sculpts are out there for the public to enjoy. It pains me that I was not able to show Dan LoRusso himself the new figure on Facebook that very day I got it.
The Parasaurolophus is your standard Battat model, which means it’s freakin’ perfect. The proportions are all correct, and the feet are nice and hoof-like. Being based on P. walkeri, one might expect to find a notch in the spine, but it is simply absent on this model, and that’s a good thing considering that the evidence for the notch was basically a broken bone on the specimen.
Like the original, this model does have a web of skin on the neck, and the information on the back of the model’s box notes that this species is sometimes (but not always) restored with this feature. The flap is painted in a nice yellow that contrasts nicely with the rest of the figure. The figure’s other colors include cream on the underside, beige in the middle, brown along the spine and around the tail, and black on the crest.
Overall, this a fine figure of a classic hadrosaur. It pains me that we may not see any more new ones like it in the future, unless Battat is willing to find a new sculptor who is on par with Dan LoRusso or Greg Wentzel’s work for the line. If you want one you can easily get it at Target in the USA, but if you live overseas, there are a number of forum members who are willing to get one for you, and it may even pop up on eBay at some point.
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Perfect? Parasaurolophus is one of the few dinos for which we have skin impressions, why on earth did they produce these with what looks like hair? And they are sooooo glossy shiny.
I always enjoy your reviews, not terribly surprising since i share a similarly high opinion of the Battat line, old and new. I did notice on the company pages that no one has done a review/ assessment of the Battat Euoplocephalus. Would you consider doing one on this animal?
I have, but we Blog Writers have made an agreement that each Battat model is to be done by a different person. I done mine, The Euoplocephalus will be done by someone else.
What a beautiful model!