The Dinosaur Toy Blog

Review by Dan Liebman of Dan’s Dinosaurs

Ever since their bizarre rebirth, Safari’s growing “Wild Safari” line has seen the release of many quality dinosaur figures. The most recent addition to this line is the American archosaur Postosuchus, which featured heavily in the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs. Its appearance in the documentary has seemingly triggered the release of several figures from various companies. None yet compare to this release from Wild Safari, however.

While the Postosuchus may seem unimpressive compared to the theropod giants of the Cretaceous, it is worth noting that this species was considered a superpredator in its day. It didn’t need to be the size of a Tyrannosaur; it was already one of the biggest carnivores roaming the land at that time. This depiction offers an upright posture, alert and agile. Though the resemblance to early reptilians is uncanny (and appropriate), this Postosuchus is not easily mistaken for an oversized lizard. This is not some prehistoric crocodile – the golden eyes appear very much alive, and the details of the fenestrae and teeth are outstanding (even for a new Wild Safari figure). The body is tangibly familiar with reptilian scales and scutes cascading across the flanks. The tail is held parallel to the ground, further amplifying its defiant “I am not a croc” image.

The wonderous amagalm of primeval yet novel qualities has been reinforced by the figure’s charming coloration. Cast in a very natural pair of hues, the Wild Safari Postosuchus strolls through the Triassic Texan landscape in dark brown and canary colors, somewhat reminiscient of a yellowjacket. These colors provide a very natural contrast that is striking enough to look dangerous, yet simple enough to lend visual credibility. The instant impression one receives at first glance is that the animal is alive, on the prowl, and definitely not something you’d want to approach in the wild.

It is indeed difficult to find significant flaws on the Wild Safari Postosuchus. His forelimbs are appropriately leaner than his hind limbs, and he ambles along in the conservative, quadrupedal posture (the species is thought to have been capable of some bipedal travel, as the aforementioned discrepancy in limb size suggests). When viewed from a rear angle, the elevation of the tail becomes even more prominent, giving a great sense of dynamic action. In short, this Postosuchus conveys everything it should. It is primitive, tough, and maybe even just a touch arrogant.

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

Up for review today is the great Yangchuanosaurus by safari. Yangchuanosaurus is sorely underrepresented in dinosaur toy lines, so I’m glad safari decided to make one (and make it good!) Yangchuanosaurus was a large theropod that was like the t-rex of it’s time. It lived alongside other dinosaurs like Sinraptor and the behemoth sauropod Mamenchisaurus.

Now back to the replica. The sculpt is very nice, it is obvious that some attention has been given to giving this guy scales all over his body. His legs aren’t deathly thin like some of Carnegie’s replicas, and they look beautiful. The head is very nice, I love the nostrils and the thick ridges going down the snout. It also has noticeable external ears. Unlike many other safari dinosaurs, this Yangchuanosaurus isn’t covered in wrinkles; The only wrinkles that are noticeable are right behind the right side of the head. The pose is fantastic. It is actually in a natural pose, not looking like “RAWR look at me I’m a dinosaur roooaar!!!”. It looks like it is wiping it’s mouth off after taking a drink from a nice prehistoric stream. This is one of the handful of safari theropods that actually has it’s mouth closed, and it looks great. At first glance, the arms seem to be of two different lengths, but when you measure them out, they are equal in length. But as with any dinosaur sculpt; this replica does have it’s faults: The left side of the head has more teeth than the right side does, the tail is very thin, and there is the absence of a dew claw on each foot. This figure is about 8 inches long.

The paint job on this figure is very nice too, and it fits the sculpt well. It is mostly a (slightly greenish) brown all over, and it is slightly more green on the head than other places on the body. The eyes are a fierce forest green with circular black pupils, and to give the illusion of sunlight hitting the eyes, there is a little white dot above each pupil. Fading black bands adorn this beast’s flanks. The ribcages are highlighted in a bright orange yellow color. The claws, unfortunately, are unpainted, and at first glance they look like part of the digits themselves. Oddly, the line of the mouth is highlighted in black– This is the only safari theropod figure that I can think of that has this feature.

Overall, this figure is a 9/10. However, since he has a very non-hunting pose with a closed mouth and docile look, he probably didn’t go over well with children too much, and thus he was discontinued. If you can find him you better get him soon, as soon I wouldn’t be surprised if he became highly sought after.

The burly, heavily armored, herbivorous nodosaur Edmontonia inhabited North America during the Late Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago. The name simply means “from Edmonton”, as the type specimen was discovered in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation near the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada by George Paterson in 1924. At roughly 22 feet in length, Edmontonia was a relatively large nodosaur which could reach a weight of 3 tons. The large spikes on its shoulders may have been used in dominance disputes between rival males, and would almost certainly have been a deterrent to predators such as Albertosaurus, which lived alongside Edmontonia.

Schleich’s Edmontonia was released in 2004 during a time when the company regularly added new and diverse prehistoric genera to its Replica-Saurus line, something which Schleich sadly has not done for many years. It is a good choice for a figure because thyreophorans are often overlooked by companies and Edmontonia’s rather unique armor and spines just look really cool. Also, the only other Edmontonia figure I know of is the Battat. This figure measures a little less than 6 inches in length and is about 2.25 inches tall, and is scaled at 1:40 along with Schleich Man for an accurate size comparison. The colors are a bit drab, with the tan plastic being highlighted with light brown paint around the joints and on its armor and head. Schleich has never been notable for producing exciting paint jobs, but in this Edmontonia’s case it is understandable because the figure is clearly based on the life-sized model of Edmontonia which is on display at the Royal Tyrell Musuem in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, and which has a similar pose and color scheme (that model is part of a larger diorama which also includes life-size reproductions of Albertosaurus, Struthiomimus, and Stegoceras, and I do recommend visiting it if you have the chance!). Unfortunately, its nails are not painted a different color and almost look like part of the feet as a result. The only other paint is the black used on its eyes. The skin is wrinkly and folded around joints. The forelimbs both have five digits, which is one too many, but it’s excusable as the model the figure is based on does as well. The armor is exquisitely detailed and exhibits some of Schleich’s best, most accurate work, but more on that in a little bit. The head is great and exhibits well the animal’s broad, flat snout, but it is a bit crooked and the sculptors perhaps went a little overboard with the “jowls” and these, along with the expressionless black eyes, give the figure a decidedly sad, dopey expression.

Now on to the armor and spines! Schleich really did their homework on this figure and it’s a winner. They have almost perfectly reproduced the armor of the very accurate full-scale model, except perhaps on the large forward-facing shoulder spines which are split into two subspines in the full scale, but this trait is not present in all specimens of Edmontonia so their omission in the figure is excusable. The rest of the spines are placed accordingly with fossil remains. The three nuchal rings on the neck and shoulders are accurately reproduced on the figure (although there is a big gap in the largest), as are the rows of smaller osteoderms which start on the back behind the forelimbs and continue down to the end of its clubless tail. Unlike Schleich’s Sauropelta, this figure really looks like what it’s supposed to be. I think this figure is better even than Battat’s Edmontonia (GASP!) which has a disproportionately long body and an almost squashed appearance by contrast.

This fantastic figure is one of Schleich’s best and one of my favorite tyreophoran models. Aside from the drab paint scheme and rather static pose (what more can you expect from Edmontonia as far as an exciting pose anyway?), it’s an awesome piece of plastic. It’s been retired a few years now but I recently bought mine from H&H Winner’s Circle for eleven bucks, and as far as I know they still have some left, so head on over there ASAP if you’re interested.

Today we will be thoroughly looking over the Papo Spinosaurus– He is quite well loved in the dinosaur and Jurassic park communities, so I hope I don’t dampen spirits too much with my somewhat critical review  As for Spinosaurus itself, it was an extremely large theropod dinosaur that lived in northern africa about 100 million years ago. It probably dined on fish and water living tetrapods. 

Let’s start off with the head or this figure. To put it bluntly, basically everything is wrong, minus the long jaws. The lack of a “fish trap” at the end of the jaws, the relatively robustness of the skull, the large and backwards pointing teeth, the nostrils low on the snout, and the two crests are all extremely un-spinosaurid like. The inside of the mouth and the tongue are beautifully detailed, and the lower jaw is poseable (great for display purposes…). The eyes are green with slit pupils, suggesting a nocturnal lifestyle. 

Now let’s focus on the body. Most everything is nice here. Great details and the claws are superb. I love the little spine/scute like projections on the back. The colors are very boring, only shades of grey (Also of note– The paint is very tacky when it gets warm[or at least with mine]). The arms could be a little more muscley, but that is really personal preference (No spinosaurus arms have been found to date). The sail is also very thin– Most likely it should be thicker, because the spines of the sail were very thick and buffalo like, so there was probably muscle and fat coating the sail, making it noticeably thick (There was probably NOT a “hump” like a camel though!). The feet seem a little large; but again, no spinosaurid limbs are known, so that is really personal taste. The body is very robust; perhaps too much– But it still looks nice. The detailing is exquisite. It also stands well, but since the plastic is relatively soft, when it becomes warm the legs can bend and the whole thing can fall flat on it’s face, and due to the delicate paint job, paint wear is just around the corner. The joints are extremely visible and distract away from the detail.

This is a very large figure– Fourteen inches long! He towers over most 1/40th scale dinosaurs. 

Overall, I give this guy an 8/10. I do think this figure is a little overrated, but people love good details and the likeliness to Jurassic Park, so of course he flies off store shelves.

Available from Amazon.com (here)

Photo generously supplied by Bokisaurus