New Carnegie Diplodocus (released 2008)

In 2008 a new Diplodocus will be added to the list of excellent Carnegie collection dinosaurs. The tail and  neck are held in a biomechanically stable and anatomically correct way (in the old one the neck was in a vertical position and the tail almost touched the ground). It is a beautiful and detailled model – it also nicely shows that ‘Dippy’ was a much lighter animal than, say, Apatosaurus. Diplodocus only weighed about 12-15 t, while Apatosaurus weighed over 22 t.  

Available here

Tyrannosaurus rex (Walking with Dinosaurs collection, by Toyway)

Eleven dinosaur figures were produced by the company Toyway, to accompany the TV series ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’. I recall my eyes bulging out of their sockets when I first came across these little gems in a local toy shop in Bath. I was visiting the town with a group of fellow palaeontology students: presumably the shop owners had no idea why their entire stock of Utahraptors was wiped out in the space of 5 minutes by a bunch of grinning young adults, but presumably they didn’t care either! I later completed my collection in the Natural History Musuem, London, getting my hands on the rare Liopleurodon. (see here). These are really great figures, with plenty of colour and character, the species in the collection represent some of the major players in the TV series.

The Tyrannosaurus is the only figure in the collection with a ‘rock’ moulded onto the foot for support.

The WWD figures are no longer in production so they are difficult to find. They were predominantly released in the UK so they most frequently can be found on Ebay UK, but sometimes on Ebay US

Are you a dinosaur collector? Come and join in the discussions at the Dinosaur Toy Forum!

photo by ‘Sbell’, used with kind permission.