Corythosaurus (Carnegie Collection by Safari ltd)

Review by Griffin8891

Corythosaurus was a lambiosaurine hadrosaur that lived during the Campanian in the Late Cretaceous about 75 million years ago. Its bones were discovered in Canada and the USA. It belongs to the same general group of dinosaurs as its slightly more popular cousin, Parasaurolophus. This particular dinosaur is also known for supplying skin imprints which can be seen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

This has always been one of my all time favorite models that Carnegie released. It is one of its older models yet it still remains to be strikingly accurate. The first thing I would like to point out about this guy’s posture. It’s on all fours, which is what is believed to be the way most duck-billed dinosaurs travelled, only rising on two legs to run quickly or reach higher vegetation while feeding. The exact pose itself is as if the animal is getting ready to rise up and bolt away from some unseen Albertosaurus or Daspletosaurus. This effect is strengthened by the fact that its head is turned slightly to the side as if to keep an eye on its pursuer while it makes its escape. Another more obvious plus about the pose is the fact that the tail is held out above the ground like it should be. Unfortunately Carnegie’s version of the related Parasaurolophus is in a bipedal pose and fall’s victim to the dreaded “tripod” look with its tail inaccurately supporting it against the ground.

The second thing I love about this model is the beautiful coloration. It has a base color of a neat greenish yellow with dark green pattern on top. The underbelly is a soft teal. The bill and finger/toenails are greenish brown. The crest itself is bluish teal with the dark green bars going down the sides. It manages to be beautiful enough to not be too dull, yet it’s not too flashy or unrealistic looking at the same time. When this guy is standing up on the display mountain with all the other Carnegie dinosaurs, its unique color catches the eye fairly quickly. Sometimes Carnegie puts less than pleasurable patterns on their dinosaurs but this one manages to pull the look of very nicely.

The detail is good. The skin is more pebbly than wrinkly which matches what the fossilized skin imprints discovered are like. As you get towards the underside it becomes smooth. The detail on the head itself is accurate. It has the small beak in front of a long horse-like muzzle (which has cheeks of course) which leads to the base of the jaw itself which is rather round and prominent. The front feet could use some more detail with regards to texture and paint but all other things considered, its fine.

All in all I think this is one of the best hadrosaur models out there. As far as Corythosaurus models go specifically, I have not seen one better than this. It’s accurate, beautifully painted, and it’s relatively cheap/available on the market. Great model.

The figure is 21 cm long.

Available from Safari.com (here) and Amazon.com (here)

Iguanodon (Replica-Saurus by Schleich)

The primitive ornithopod dinosaur Iguanodon lived during the Early Cretaceous period in Europe, approximately 125 million years ago. Animals like Iguanodon eventually gave rise to the hadrosaurs of the Late Cretaceous. In the past, numerous remains from all over the globe have been attributed to this genus, spanning from the Late Jurassic all the way until the end of the Cretaceous period, but current research suggests that the only valid species of Iguanodon (I. bernissartensis) lived in Early Cretaceous Europe. Iguanodon was the second dinosaur to be formally described (the first being Megalosaurus) and was first discovered in Sussex, England in 1822 by physician-turned-fossil enthusiast Gideon Mantell.

Schleich released this Iguanodon way back in 2002, but it’s still one of their better figures. Despite it being a relatively well-known dinosaur to the general public, Iguanodon has lately been absent from major toy lines, excepting Carnegie’s bipedal figure, which has been around since the early 90’s. Bullyland and Invicta have both long since retired their retro Iguanodon figures, the short-lived but well done Toyway Walking with Dinosaurs Iguanodon quickly became difficult to acquire in the early 2000s, and the Schleich version reviewed here has also been retired for years by now. This figure is 5.5 inches long and roughly 2.25 inches tall, which in 1:40 scale (which Schleich tries to adhere to with its Replica-Saurus line) equates to roughly 16 or 17 feet in life, making this guy far too small. It should be almost twice this size to fit in 1:40 but I’ve always just considered it to be a juvenile. There are distinct folds of skin around the neck and limbs, and the figure is overall very wrinkly. This figure also sports what is undoubtedly one of Schleich’s best prehistoric paint jobs. Along the animal’s spine it is painted a dark green that could almost be black, while on its sides and limbs this lightens to more of an olive color. The underside is painted striking mustard yellow which contrasts nicely with the green. Each foot is lightly painted tan, but the hooves are unfortunately not painted a different color. The muzzle is also tan, and the eyes are painted orange with black pupils. This Iguanodon figure is unusual in that it is the one of the few to be posed in a quadrupedal stance (the Toyway is as well), but fossil evidence supports this as the primary means of locomotion for Iguanodon.

This sculpt is definitely one of Schleich’s hits. It is the most accurate Iguanodon ever produced by a major company for a few reasons. All other attempts by Bullyland, Invicta, and Safari are posed bipedally with the tail reaching the ground for support (this is exaggerated to a HILARIOUS degree in the Invicta), while the quadrupedal stance of the Schleich looks much more fluid and natural. The sculptors also sculpted its hands to look more like hooves for walking, with the middle three digits fused together, an idea which is also widely supported by paleontologists. Unfortunately, the thumb spikes are quite small and don’t look much bigger than the figure’s “pinky” fingers, but you could also consider this to be a juvenile trait. Other than that the animal is proportioned beautifully, and the skull is quite accurate. I should mention the Toyway WWD Iguanodon here as it is also in a quadrupedal pose, but it was never widely available, the front limbs show no fusion of the middle digits, and its hind feet are just absolutely bizarre.

In short this Iguanodon is simply fantastic, and I’d recommend it to any dinosaur enthusiast. The hard part these days is finding one because, like I said, it’s been retired for a few years now, so your best bet would be Ebay and the like.

Paraceratherium (Collecta)

Paraceratherium, also commonly known as Indricotherium or Baluchitherium, was a genus of gigantic hornless rhinoceros-like mammals, belonging to the family of the Hyracodontidae. Their fossils have been found in many parts of Asia, including Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Mongolia, and China. It lived from the middle Oligocene to the early Miocene, roughly from 30 to 20 million years ago, when this region of Asia was covered in lush subtropical forests and woodlands.

This is Collecta Paraceratherium, a heavy beauty of a prehistoric creature figure! It is 15,5 cm tall and 18 cm long. All painted in tan with some darker, amlost lavender stripes outlining the main muscle strands and ribcage, it has been sculpted in an authentic, posture. Maybe it looks out for the rest of the herd, pausing for a while, or chews up some food.

The head is held in an almost right ankle to the forceful neck. The lips show up neatly detailed folds. It looks as if this animal is smiling like a comic figure when you watch it from the right perspective.
The auricles face backwards, which makes the head look quite vividly. The next move of the auricles could be forward, fawning annoying flies away. The eyes look forward, staring directly at the reviewer and making him laugh. On the one hand it´s a very credible and natural mien, on the other hand this looks somewhat dull. But have you ever watched a giraffe chewing?

Collecta sculptors did well transferring the heavy build of the original, yet the legs seem to be a little too slender. One would expect thicker limbs for an animal this size – Paraceratherium after all was 5,5 metres high and 7-8 metres long and weighed 11-15 tons. Nonetheless the legs are not too thin, they are only a distractive detail and it could as well be I´m wrong with my hypothesis. The sixteen toes reveal grey tips, affectionally painted in one of the only four colours Collecta got by with for this model.

I recommend this model of the biggest landliving mammal of all times to every collector. It´s authentic, affordable and a welcome alternation to the dominant dinosaur figure zoo. As far as heaviness and power are concerned, this Paraceratherium catches up with Triceratops kin or even smaller sauropods.

Paratypothorax (The World of Dinosaurs by Bullyland)

The hognosed Paratypothorax was, at up to 3 meters in length, one of the largest of the aetosaurs. Aetosaurs were a clade of quadrupedal armored archosaurs (“ruling reptiles”) which existed during the Late Triassic. Paratypothorax lived some 210 million years ago in Europe. The name translates to “near pitted armor”. Although its bony armor causes it to resemble a primitive form of armored dinosaur, Paratypothorax and its relatives such as Desmatosuchus were not dinosaurs, and the similarities are due to convergent evolution causing these two groups to adapt to predators along similar lines, though independently of each other. Although most aetosaurs were strictly herbivorous, it has been suggested that some may have been omnivorous, subsisting on roots which would have been dug up with their pig-like snouts as well as small invertebrates. Interestingly, bowlike nests which have since been linked to aetosaurs were unearthed in Arizona’s Petrified Forest in 1996, providing some of the earliest evidence of such nests in the fossil record. The single largely complete skeleton of Paratypothorax is on display at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

This Paratypothorax figure was released alongside Bullyland’s two other Triassic reptiles (Arizonasaurus and Batrachotomus) in 2007. It is largely based on the aforementioned skeletal reconstruction on display in the Stuttgart Musuem. The figure is 7.5 inches long and about 1.5 inches tall, and is scaled at 1:20 along with the human to show size comparison. The armor scutes have a smooth texture, while the head is scaly and the underside and limbs are wrinkly. The armor is divided into segments which start at the back of the skull and continue down to the tip of the clubless tail. The middle section of armor along the spine is an orange-brown color while the right and left halves are colored dark red and decorated with dark brown spots. The spiked edges of the armor are this same dark brown. The belly and underside of the tail are also protected by armor scutes and are the same orange-brown coloration found along the spine and head of the animal. The orange-brown tail is banded with dark brown, and the wrinkles on the underside are detailed with dark brown. The limbs are wrinkly and decorated with dark brown patterns. The small head with its upturned snout has a large closed mouth that almost seems to be smiling, and large, almost comical black eyes that also erroneously display sclera (whites). The pose is in mid-stride and gives you an idea of the shuffling gait the animal probably had in life.

Paratypothorax is only the second genus of aetosaur to be produced by a museum line (the other is the beautiful and rare Schleich Desmatosuchus, which someone here should review!) and it is a very accurate entry. The larger 1:20 scale (Schleichs’ Desmato is 1:40 scale and therefore very small) allowed for much more detail to be worked into the figure. The body and armor are much wider and flatter in Paratypothorax than in Desmatosuchus, and this has been represented well by the sculptors. Paratypothorax also lacked the large shoulder spikes exhibited by Desmatosuchus, and so does this figure. The armor is spot-on and fabulous, and the characteristic upturned, pig-like aetosaur snout is reproduced well. The skull is very small in relation to the rest of the body as it should be in aetosaurs. The limbs were held closer to the body and slightly erect, similar to rauisuchians, and this is reflected here. Each limb has the correct number of five digits. Considering only one relatively intact specimen of Paratypothorax has been described to date, this figure is probably one of Bullyland’s best.

This piece combines an earthy and realistic coloration and a good sculpt which makes it one of my favorite non-dinosaur prehistoric figures. Even though it isn’t a dinosaur, I don’t think thyreophoran fans should miss out on this one. You’d better hurry up though because this figure was not featured in Bullyland’s 2009 catalog, which leads me to suspect that it has recently been retired!