Ophthalmosaurus (Walking with Dinosaurs by Toyway)

Every time I see the new tacky Toyway dinosaurs and compare them with the original WwD series, I feel like screaming. Are the Toyway guys out of their mind? Do they really want to go bankrupt? They’ve not only disgraced the line for the British Museum of Natural History, but they’ve refused to produce figures for the rest of the BBC creations, a line that could have been the best collection of prehistorical figures ever.

Which brings us to the issue of the day. The Ophthalmosaurus really shows the potential of the creatures spawned by the BBC, which makes it very sought after. It’s perhaps the greatest thunnosaurian replica so far (other than the Ichthyosaurus, companies do not produce many of them)

Many prehistoric marine reptiles (but particularly ichthyosaurids) always make simple one-piece molds. This has been a rule ever since the first important plastic ichthyosaurid, the Invicta Ichthyosaurus, appeared. The skin is significantly smooth; OK, no certainty about that, no ichthyosaur skin impression has ever been found as far as I’m concerned, but it makes for a fluent, dynamic design. The union between the body and the fins is hardly noticeable (just a few wrinkles).

The eyes are perhaps the most awe-inspiring, most famous feature of the Ophthalmosaurus. With an amazing diameter of almost 5 inches, those are the largest eyes of a vertebrate in relation to its body (the body measured around 6 meters and the toy measures 25cm; I’d read that the eyes of the Temnodontosaurus were even larger). The eyes of this replica might be a little overdone (not much I suspect) so it has a spooky look on its face. The black round pupil covers most of the surface, with just a little yellow ream.

With a little bit of artistic license, they positioned the nostrils backwards and made the body look a little bit fatter than it should (I’m pretty sure the BBC CGI was slimmer). They added a beautiful little pouch on the gullet, as if you could almost see the fish it had eaten.

As for the paint, a very fresh, very convincing watery design: deep blue but also yellow and greenish tones. If we compare it with the WwD Cruel Seas sequence, we perceive that the paint scheme differs a little: while the CGI showed some brownish tones, the yellow tends to be clear. Also the pattern on the snout is different. The figure is made of solid plastic (the weight is considerable), the body is in a straight position.

This review was inspired by Atomic Elephant, a very nice online store where you can find many prehistoric critters and many other science-related toys.

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

Allosaurus (Papo) (Review)

Back in January, the Dinosaur Toy Blog announced the unveiling of Papo’s latest addition to their dinosaur line (here). Well, it’s finally for sale so I’ve had the opportunity to review the figure in more detail and provide some detailed photographs. Long story short – the figure is amazing – I can’t take my eyes off it.

The new Allosaurus is similar to the existing Papo sculpts in a number of aspects: the detail is immense, the colouring is vivid but natural, the pose is fluid and dynamic, and the lower jaw is poseable. However, the Allosaurus also stands out from all of the other dinosaurs in the series because it is not been based on the dinosaurs portrayed in the Jurassic Park movies. This figure on the other hand, represents a dinosaur not even portrayed in Jurassic Park and is an original sculpt strongly reminiscent of the work of palaeoartist Todd Marshall.

The jaws don’t open amazingly wide but the detail inside the mouth is stunning. Here is the head in side view, open and closed:

There are some speculative details in this sculpt, notable are the protruding scales (not feathers) on the top of the neck and on parts of the back. In addition, all of the scales on the back are large and raised so the Allosaurus has a bumpy and decorative hide – this toughened appearance gives way to smoother skin on the sides and underside. I personally like this sort of detail, dinosaur figures are always open to a degree of artistic licence but such touches are usually beneficial in terms of the aesthetics of the model and in this case add a realistic feel to the animal; many dinosaur figures are often quite conservative in this regard.

There are further such details as pronounced knuckles in the fingers, clear protrusions corresponding to the pubis and ilium, stretched skin where the leg meets the body, muscular ridges corresponding to the hips and shoulder blades, individually sculpted teeth, the claw on the first finger is enlarged as it should be (most Allosaurus figures overlook this feature), a finely sculpted hallux toe, the list just oes on.

The legs and arms are muscular (perhaps a little too strongly developed in the feet) and the animal is taking a long stride, the tail is long and held high so that the figure balances perfectly on two feet. However, in my figure is prone to falling over unless the surface is perfectly horizontal. The arms are pulled back towards the body – the left hand almost touches the left knee. The figure is 26cm long so it is smaller than the Papo Spinosaurus – it is roughly to scale with the other papo theropods.

The claws are black and the teeth are white, while the skin is covered in a mottled pattern of greys and greens with some orange highlights. The eye ridges are typical of this genus and are beautifully highlighted with orange and capped with ornamental scales. The eyes are yellow with black pupils.

In all honesty, this is probably the best mass-produced dinosaur figure currently available (possibly ever) and redeems Papo for all of the erroneous details in some of their other figures. Papo is raising the standard in museum quality dinosaur toys, lets hope that the other companies such as Schleich, Bullyland and Safari will keep up…

Now available on Ebay here (seller has more in stock) and available on Amazon here.

Kronosaurus (Schleich)

Big nasty pliosaurs are the order of the day – and there are plenty more to come – this review represents the first in a series of pliosaur blog entries I’m working on. A compare and contrast deal; battle of the pliosaur toys so to speak! We have already looked in detail at the popular Chap Mei Liopleurodon here so I will continue this series with another popular figure, the Kronosaurus by Schleich. The Schleich marine reptiles are quite celebrated in the dinosaur toy community, so I hope I do not dampen spirits too much with my critical eye.

We’ll start with the business end, there are good and bad aspects about the head. Starting with the good, the nostrils are accurately retracted close to the eyes (nicely sculpted narrow slits) and the eyes are in the right position facing upwards and outwards. There is large bulbous bump at the back of the skull which corresponds to a high crest and temporal opening in the actual skull of Kronosaurus (The ‘Harvard specimen’ anyway, whether the skeleton is accurate is a different story I’ll tell in time). This bulge represents the muscular mass housed within this fenestra which is quite a nice touch, unfortunately it extends too far back. In fact, to correspond with cranium as sculpted, the lower jaw must extend all the way to the front flippers – this toy therefore has almost no neck, true, Kronosaurus has a short neck, but in this figure it should be a bit longer.

There are other problems with the skull, particularly the shape of the snout and teeth. The teeth in large pliosaurs such as Kronosaurus interlock and protrude slightly, they also vary considerably in shape – they become large and caniniform (fang-like) midway along the jaws. The Schliech Kronosaurus on the other hand has a dull generalised dentition, the teeth in the lower jaw are OK but the teeth in the upper jaw face inwards rather than protruding outwards. And there is no sign of those fang-like teeth typical of pliosaurs. The shape of the snout is down-turned in the toy whereas it should actually curve upwards and expanded at the tip. The snout extends beyond the teeth, which is also not the case in pliosaur fossils. These errors all add up, the general outcome is an animal that look more wimpy than ferocious. There are some nice speculative additions to the mouth – a gullet and tongue are visible in the open mouth.

Moving onto the body, I find myself struggling to find compliments. The spine curves around to the left, but due to the way they swam, curvature in the spine of plesiosaurs was extremely limited: the midriff of plesiosaurs was reinforced by large plates of bone and tightly backs belly ribs. This formed a sturdy base for the wing-like limbs – the curved body in the Schleich pliosaur is therefore very unlikely. The flippers are rather generic tapering triangular shapes, there is no distinction between the humerus/femur and the rest of the flipper as there should be, plesiosaur flippers were slightly expanded mid-length or slightly diamond shaped is a good description). All held out at the same angle so the sculptors do not commit to any specific locomotory repertoire. I also note that the flippers are too thin where they meet the body, there is hardly enough depth for the humerus/femur head, let alone the strong muscles associated with the propulsory flippers. The tail tapers to a narrow tip.

The colour scheme is a chocolate brown with lovely subtle patches of darker brown, the underside is counter-shaded with a pale grey. The eyes are black (no pupils), and the eyelids are highlighted in lighter brown. In conclusion, at a glance the figure appears nice and at 27cm long is quite a stunning figure, but there are far too many mistakes to make this figure worthy of idolizing. In my next pliosaur review, we will see how this Schleich figure compares with another very popular Kronosaurus figure…

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Pteranodon (Papo) (Review 2)

A short review of this figure appeared way back in 2007, but now I have the opportunity to present some detailed photos and provide a more detailed review.

As previously mentioned, the figure is obviously based on the pterosaurs in Jurassic park 3, but what I didn’t mention is that this figure has teeth (as kindly pointed out by Tomhet). Interestingly, and pertinent to the very nature of this blog, there is an interesting story relevant to this figure. Many cheap dinosaurs (known as ‘Chinasaurs’ in the dinotoy community because they are typically manufactured there) have a habit of adding vicious teeth to each and every species of prehistoric creature, predatory stegosaurs and triceratops abound for example, and Pteranodons; the name means ‘winged and (ironically) toothless’, with a ferocious maw. And how us palaeontologists scoffed, for no large crested pterosaurs have teeth! Then a pterosaur was described in 2003 and named Ludodactylus. The name means ‘play finger’ as a tribute to the toothy rubber chinasaurs – this is a large crested pterosaur with a mouth full of teeth – a species ‘predicted’ by toy companies years in advance. In light of this discovery, apologists for the Papo line comfort themselves by pretending that the figure is in fact a Ludodactylus.

With the Exception of the teeth the Papo Pteranodon is pretty accurate and detailed. The only other major error I noticed is the lack of a pteroid bone in the wrist, otherwise the arms are really good – the number of digits and finger bones is spot on and you can even differentiate between the radius and ulna in the forearm – I suppose it makes sense for a large flying animal to be as skinny as possible. The wing membranes are narrow and join the body at the knee (I’m not sure what the consensus is at the moment – did the wings join at the body, knee, or ankle?), and there is a small tail supporting a membrane. The wings are concave below and curve towards the tip as if they are catching the wind – very dynamic pose.

The sunken eyes are bright yellow and convincing and there is a long pink tongue in the mouth, but the figure is overall dull and brown, which is a let down. Unlike some of the other papo figures, the lower jaw is not mobile so the jaws cannot be shut.

Available here for example ($7.95).

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