The Dinosaur Toy Blog

With “1994″ stamped on its tummy the Plateosaurus is fast becoming one of the older figures in the Carnegie Collection. Plateosaurus is from the Triassic of Germany and is classified as a prosauropod dinosaur, that is a close relative of the later large long-necked sauropods.

Plateosaurus was once thought to have been completely bipedal and was usually depicted striding boldly around on two hind legs. Today Plateosaurus is regarded as primarily quadrupedal with the possibility of rearing or running on two legs on occasion (the scientific term is ‘facultative biped’). The Carnegie figure is standing proud on two feet so it is out of date in this regard, although it retains a certain nostalgic charm. The pose is also quite static so it looks like it is just standing there looking straight ahead.

The hands have five uniform stubby little fingers, that’s the correct number of digits but doesn’t accurately reflect the variation in claw and finger size seen in the actual animal, there is no large thumb claw for example. Similarly there is something funny going on with the feet – the right number of toes are present but the 5th toe (on the outside of the leg) is positioned rather high.

The head is well done for such a small piece and it quite ‘boxy’ with a blunt snout. The nostrils are particularly large, in fact is has been suggested that prosauropods such as Plateosaurus had an excellent sense of smell. The colour is very nice with chocolate brown on the back and striking black and white streaks on its flanks. There are also some spots on the neck. Prosauropod figures are not frequently produced as toys so this figure is nice addition to any collection, although it would be interesting to see weather a new version is introduced as a replacement if this aging figure is ever retired.

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Here we have Linde Sphenacodon. In May Tomhet wrote an excellent recension of Marx´ classic Sphenacodon, also writing that “the two others were almost impossible to find”. Well, almost.
Austrian company Linde added plastic toys to their coffee packages. Eight of those were prehistoric beasts, not all to scale but well sculptured and highly detailed. Made of marbled olive-coloured plastic sometimes nerved by black or red, with a waxy feel, Linde reptiles are highly collectible.

Their Sphenacodon is no exception. It is 7,6 cm long and 1,9 cm tall. The reconstruction shows the animal in a crawling posture, muzzle opened wide. As for detailedness in relation to size, the Sphenacodon catches up to Invicta Dimetrodon. The skin pattern is worked out very well, so are the feet with their claws and the ridge on the back.
The head requires extra attention. Eyes, ears and nostrils are caringly machined. The mouth lacks teeth for some reason, the cleft in the upper jaw, typical for pelycosaurs is present. Funnily, from above the nose of the animal looks like the nose of an elephant seal.

Regarding this animal and the way it has been reconstructed, I can hardly understand that the cool Sphenacodons are neglected so much in comparison to the Dimetrodons. Probably it is because they lack the spectacular sail, so one can say Sphenacodons stand in the shadow of Dimetrodons´ sails and can thus be easily overlooked. Unfourtunately they do not deserve this fate.

An interesting fact about Linde reptiles: two of their animals´ names bear misspellings: The Tyranosaurus and the Spenacodon.
As a bonus to this review you can see an encounter of Linde and Marx Sphenacodon on the picture above. It´s up to your fantasy what these rarities tell each other…

Size comparison

Bullyland Diatryma is a well done replica of an athletic, robust bird. Bullyland scores with a credible posture, nice colouring and some neat details. On the other hand one can say Bullyland perhaps interpreted Diatryma a little bit too clumsy.

Diatryma, nowadays better known under the name Gastornis, is an extinct genus of large flightless bird that lived during the late Paleocene and Eocene periods of the Cenozoic. Fossils were found in Texas, USA, as well as in Messel, Germany. Some scientists think Diatrymas were top – predators of the rainforests in those times, preying on early horses and other little mammals. Some others think the beak was perfectly adapted to cracking seeds and tearing off twigs and branches from trees. Debate goes on.

Diatryma measured about 1,90 m in height. The Bullyland version has a 1:24 scale and thus is 8 cm tall and about 9 cm long. Its overall colour goes from bright grey on the belly to dark blue or even black for the plumage. This plumage is worked out well. It allows perfectly for the fact that Diatryma´s feathers were not the ones one knows from flying birds but rather thick, long and hairlike keratin structures.

The head exhibits a yellow beak with black forefronts and an orange eye area. One can well imagine this Diatryma as a male in courtship, trying to attract females by displaying its strong head, shaking it from one side to the other maybe. The beak also reveals an orange tongue.
Let´s look at the legs and feet. The shins and feet show scales, the theropod origin of birds comes to mind. The toes run out in powerful, groundrunners´ claws.
We can conclude that Bullyland did a very good job. The terror bird figure circle of friends is growing, and Bullyland Diatryma contributes to this discovery for sure!

It is time for the „King“. Today I would like to review the Tyrannosaurus by Linde. Linde  produced a coffee substitute herbal tea back in the 50´s and casually added little plastic toys as premiums to the packages. There was a lot of eight prehistoric animals among them.  
Linde T.rex is of olive-coloured, marbled plastic with a waxy feel. It is 6,2 cm tall and 7,5 cm long, one of the smaller T.rex collectibles out there, similar in size to Marx or the Bullyland minis.

It is very old fashioned in posture, broad and bulky.  A dinosaur adept immediately recognizes that the sculptors clinged to the Tyrannosaurus from the Great Dinosaur Mural at the Peabody Museum of Natural History from the Yale University in New Haven while sculpting this model.

The unequalled fresco was painted to the wall of the great dinosaur hall by Rudolph Zallinger in 1944 and is still highly esteemed by palaeoartists around the world. The mural shows early reptiles as behemoths of a long lost time and represents the common sense on dinosaurs those days. They were regarded as sluggish, dim – witted animals leading towards extinction cluelessly.

The Linde Tyrannosaurus is a three dimensional version of the T.rex on the fresco. The sculptors assigned all the details accurately: Nostrils, ears, the very small arms, the eyes and the teeth. They even noted the crest on the back, making it look like made of skin. It runs down to the end of the tail as a small, jagged ridge. I also love the highly detailed plaits on the neck. The waxy surface makes these plaits look like leathery skin.
Overall, Linde T.rex is a gem in every collection. Not just because of its overall look, but also because its connection to the Yale mural and the fact it is probably the only Austrian T.rex out there.
This is a figure that affords a multidimensional approach, and that is just of my taste. Unspectacular at first sight it reveals its secrets little by little.
Sometimes Linde prehistoric animals show up on ebay. Their Rhamphorhynchus is supposed to be highly sought after.