Therizinosaurus (Wild Safari by Safari Ltd.)

Biggest by far of all known maniraptorans, bearer of the longest claws of any known animal, and just downright rocambolesque to the human eye, Therizinosaurus is one truly remarkable dinosaur. It’s been made into a toy by many of the major companies, including Safari Ltd. on two occasions previously. And now at very long last we have their third version, part of the wonderful Wild Safari series. A massive merci beaucoup goes out to the benevolent bodies at Happy Hen Toys for this review sample!

This dinosaur is sculpted in an upright standing pose. At first glance, it appears to be using its tail as a third leg for support, but with mine at least, the tip is in fact a millimetre off the ground. The majority of Therizinosaurus toys are sculpted standing upright, and it makes sense given that the real animal would have been frequently rearing up tall in order to dine on greens growing from the trees, to scan its surroundings, to intimidate predators, and to put on mating displays.

The right arm is dangling downward while the left one is raised higher and bending more at the elbow. The head is turned to look to the right and the wide eyes and slightly downturned mouth give off the impression that this individual is feeling uneasy about something. On the other hand, it could just as easily be feeling perfectly chipper. It scales very well with most 1:35 scale toys, measuring about 23.5 cm long and 17 cm tall, along with 2 cm long foreclaws. That makes it the tallest theropod dinosaur in the Wild Safari series to date.

The feathered portion of the Therizinosaurus‘ body is painted dark brown, which in turn has been painted over lightly with metallic grey to give the plumage a bit of an iridescent appearance. The scaly bits, meanwhile, are flat grey with brown wash and the claws are all beige with airbrushed brown. The neck is snowy white like a bald eagle’s and the bare head has been washed over with light blue, along with orange eyes, pink nostrils, and a beige beak. It’s a very good and very plausible colour scheme, and I especially like the blue head. I can easily envision this individual being a male, with females having brown or grey heads instead. Or perhaps it is a female and the males have combs or wattles, or heads coloured midnight blue or burning red. It all works.

This toy was crafted by that maestro of Mesozoic moulds, Doug Watson, so there can be no doubt whatsoever as to its top quality. The feathers have been assiduously sculpted to appear shaggy and relatively soft, rather like those on emus and rheas. They cover the entirety of the neck, the arms, the thighs, most of the torso, and the dorsal half of the tail, with a sizable fan at the tip. The palms of the hands, the belly, the shins and feet, and the ventral half of the tail are covered in scales. The scales on the legs are small and rounded, while the ones on the belly and tail are larger and more rectangular-shaped. The feet are covered in scutes, the head has a bumpy, pitted texture, and the claws are smooth.

This Therizinosaurus has a small head with a tapering snout ending in a hard, rounded beak. The neck is relatively long and thin, much like that of ornithomimosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, and basal sauropodomorphs. It is attached to a hefty, bulging torso in which the hips are the widest section as opposed to the rib cage like with tyrannosaurines. Indeed, Therizinosaurus is estimated to have been 1.5 metres wide at the midsection, which would make it the second widest known theropod after the 1.6 metre wide Tyrannosaurus rex. The tail is very short and thin, to the point where it almost appears unnatural attached to such a large theropod. The legs are stocky and stout-looking, well suited for supporting the weight of a +5 ton animal. Unlike the feet of most other theropods, the first toes on these ones are both forward-facing and weight-bearing.

This brings us to the most famous and fascinating part of Therizinosaurus‘ anatomy, those marvellous front limbs. Each massive arm terminates in three scythe-shaped claws, with the biggest on the first digit and the smallest on the third. These claws are noticeably smaller in proportion to the rest of the animal than on the versions from CollectA, PNSO, and Schleich, but bigger than the Papo one’s. This can be chalked up to differing interpretations as to how big of a keratinous sheath covered each claw in real life. Doug seems to have gone with a more conservative one, which I know is his style. They look great.

No one could be faulted for gazing on such claws and concluding that they were employed for defense against Tarbosaurus and other predatory dinosaurs. It has also been suggested that the claws were used as hooks for pulling leafy branches towards their owner’s mouth. Or as a combination of shovels and pickaxes to dig up roots. But a research study published in February 2023 dumped cold water down on all those notions. It found that the claws were just too narrow and weak for use in digging, hooking, piercing, pulling, or slashing. So what use were they then? The authors suggested that they could have been used for display purposes. Competing males might have spread their arms wide and waved their claws at one another in front of females in order for all to determine whose were the longest and sexiest. Or perhaps males waved their claws directly at females as part of a mating display. And one other possibility is that the claws were used for grooming feathers and scratching itches. But as Robert Stack would have noted, it remains an unsolved mystery.

And on that note, gauging the accuracy of this or any other Therizinosaurus toy is rather dicey, for despite its relative popularity, it remains a poorly known dinosaur. At the present time, its known remains consist of nearly all of the right arm, including the hand and shoulder blade, and part of the left arm, assorted claws, and most of the right foot. Restorations of its head, neck, torso, and tail have therefore been based on those of its smaller and better known relatives, including Alxasaurus, Erlikosaurus, and Neimongosaurus. On the one hand, it seems unlikely that Therizinosaurus was radically different in overall structure and appearance from its brethren, but on the other hand, we once thought the same thing about Deinocheirus, and it turned out to have a duck-like snout and a hump on its back. Only the discovery of additional specimens will say for certain. And as for all those wonderful fluffy feathers, we have no clue how much or how little integument the real animal possessed–although most artistic renderings nowadays go with a feathered appearance. So for now, I reckon the fairest assessment is to say that Safari’s latest toy is indubitably in keeping with our present interpretation of Therizinosaurus.

Which brings us at last to comparing it with the standard and Deluxe-sized toys from CollectA.

Again, I quite like the size of this toy; not too big and not too small. It certainly beats out both CollectAs in terms of accuracy and sculpting–although you would expect that given the latter came out back in 2012 and 2014. Personally, I’m still very fond of the Deluxe one.

And here it is with the CollectA Deluxe Deinocheirus, another favourite of mine. I reckon they go very well together.

I don’t own the PNSO Therizinosaurus, but based on the images and reviews I’ve seen, I do believe that the Safari one matches if not excels it in most categories, and it definitely wins out in terms of price tag.

Overall, this Therizinosaurus represents the very best that the Wild Safari line has to offer. It’s big enough to be imposing, but still small enough to interact smoothly with many other dinosaur toys and not take up too much room on the shelf. Its sculpting is second to none, its colouration is attractive and very plausible, and again, it’s in keeping with the current science. Granted, future fossil discoveries may well render it obsolete, or could just as easily vindicate it, but either way, it’ll remain a terrific toy. It is currently available for purchase at Happy Hen Toys; my thanks go out to them once more!