Torosaurus was a Late Cretaceous ceratopsian from North America, and its nearly 9-foot skull was among the largest of any land-based organism in natural history. The holotype specimen was discovered in Wyoming in 1891 by John Hatcher and the genus Torosaurus was established by the famous American paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh shortly after. The animal was closely related to Triceratops and some paleontologists, most notably Jack Horner, have even proposed that all fossil specimens attributed to Torosaurus in fact represent the adult male form of Triceratops.
The Schleich Torosaurus was a 2000 addition to the Replica-Saurus line, and one of my personal favorites. This figure is 7.5 inches long and roughly 3.5 inches high, making it roughly 1:40 scale. The coloration, following Schleich’s trend, is pretty drab, though not awful. The animal’s post-cranial anatomy is colored a dark blue-gray, with very dark gray highlights around the limbs and tail. The skull and horns are colored dark tan. I feel it would have been more realistic with a more colorful frill, especially considering new theories that ceratopsian frills may have been used as mating displays.
The model is textured nicely with large, pebbly scales, right down to the bottoms of its feet, though the frill has the exact same texture as the animal’s body, which I’m not sure would have been very true-to-life. Details on the skull such as the nostrils are very nicely sculpted. Probably the most intriguing thing about this Torosaurus are the bright orange eyes. The hooves are the same dark tan as the brow horns.
This is definitely among Schleich’s better dinosaur models, but there are still some inaccuracies here. The brow horns are way too close together and the model is overall a bit chunky, but still, it’s a very good representation of Torosaurus, complete with the huge neck frill. It also has the correct number of digits on each limb, and there are a lot of subtle details that give it life, too, like the slight wrinkly “wattle” under the neck, the folds of skin around joints, and the fairly dynamic charging pose.
This has always been one of my very favorites of the entire Replica-Saurus line, and I’d recommend it to anyone who can find it. The problem is that it’s been out of production so long that your only good bet at finding it is ebay.
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Love this one! One of the first dinosaurs I ever got (I can actually remember the order in which I got my first ten ‘museum’ or ‘sub-museum’ dinosaurs).
The eyes look like it’s standing in headlights. Kinda creepy looking.
Yeah, that is Horner. Never said it was a valid theory, and I’m not sure I really buy it anyway, but I figured it was at least worthy of mentioning.
I can’t stand those eyes. Other than that its a cool and pretty unique figure.
“The animal was closely related to Triceratops and some paleontologists, most notably Jack Horner, have even proposed that all fossil specimens attributed to Torosaurus in fact represent the adult male form of Triceratops.”
Yeah, but that’s Horner, ain’t it? Also, some bits of me want him to be right for once, because Schleich needs to have had a decent Triceratops in their line at one point,and they’re not gonna get it with any ‘true’ Triceratops they’ve made so far.
Es de lo mejor de Schleich pero yo aún me quedo con el Torosaurus realizado en honor de la serie Caminando entre los Dinosaurios.