Back in the early 70s a line of small hard plastic dinosaur toys were released by a company in England called Inpro. Despite the way they look by today’s standards they were actually quite educational as they were sold attached to a card that had information about the earth’s history and what not. If that’s not enough proof for you then you can always flip one of these bad boys over to see the animal it’s modeled after’s name clearly printed on its belly instead of “CHINA”. This is a toy that I had as a small child that I was recently lucky enough to obtain once again via ebay (Yes now my life actually has meaning.) If you couldn’t tell already, it’s modeled after the dinosaur, Styracosaurus. It lived during the Late Cretaceous about 75 million years ago in North America. Next to Triceratops, this is the most famous ceratopsian due to its menacing appearance, although most people don’t actually know its name.
I’m going to be honest. When it comes to accuracy, I am impressed with this figure. Why? Check out the head on this guy. Too often I see Styracosaurus toys, many of which made very recently, with just a random number of spikes sticking out all over the frill. This little guy actually has it right though. Six very large spikes are coming out of the top of the frill, three on each side. Even more impressive is the fact that the arrangement of these spikes is also correct! The top most ones are slightly separated from the other two on each side. Beautiful! It also has the singular nose horn and the frill itself also isn’t too large. The actual skull did have a series of much smaller horns and bony lining the frill which are not present on this model. For the most part this look is very outdated though.
For such a tiny figure that’s over thirty years old, it has nice detail. Starting at the head it’s pretty neat how even the two holes present in the frill of the real skull were sculpted in there. The horns are also quite sharp. I’m surprised I never hurt myself while playing with this thing as a kid. The figure’s body is covered in tiny wrinkles and raised bumps.
As for color this figure is a dark olive color and the top of the back, feet, belly and tip of the beak are a pretty light grayish blue color. The eyes are painted red with black pupils. The paint application on Inpro figures is really variable. I have seen pictures of this same model where the green and blue are in different places and the eyes look like a blind person painted them on.
I like this little guy and am very happy to have him back. They make a cool collector’s item since they are small and still pretty cheap to buy online. If you are one of those who only sees beauty in the most up to date, scientifically accurate figures then you may want to pass on this these guys.
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I used to have a blue-coloured version of this guy, although the eyes weren’t so bad. It’s good to see him again…sob.