Monthly Archives: April 2010

Chasmosaurus is a fairly well known ceratopsian that lived in Canada during the Campanian era of the Late Cretacious.  It’s characterized by a distinctly tall and wide frill accompanied by three horns on its face.  At least three individual species of this dinosaur are known due to variation amongst frills and horns on various skulls.  Chasmosaurus would have co-existed with other well known dinosaurs such as Parasaurolophus, Albertosaurus, Daspletosaurus, Dromaeosaurus and its ceratopsian relatives, Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus to name a few.

This particular figure from Procon looks like it’s either Chasmosaurus belli or Chasmosaurus russelli judging by the frill but chances are it wasn’t actually modeled to be any particular species.  It’s striking a rather dynamic pose, one front limb is raised up and the mouth is open in a roar.  It really looks angry as if it’s defending its babies or mate against a marauding Tyrannosaur.  The detailing is decent.  Its skin is bumpy with wide scales along the under belly.  The horns and beak are very smooth.

As far as scientific accuracy goes, this figure isn’t too great, especially if you are the nit-picky type.  The horns don’t really look right, especially the one on the nose, it’s too long and thorn-shaped like the brow horns.  It should probably be wider and a little shorter.  The feet are also pretty off.  Ceratopsian digits were most likely much more differentiated with regards to spacing and length as oppose to the stubby tortoise-style feet of this model.  Other than those two things it’s not horrible.  At the very least it’s clearly recognizable as a Chasmosaurus and not some other related dinosaur to anyone who knows the animal (which is more than I can say about some of Procon’s generic therapod figures).  Also, the tail is nice and short as it should be.  Many times people fail to understand how stubby ceratopsian tails really are.

The Chasmosaur’s skin is a pretty steel blue color and the horns, beak and toenails are all white.  Two red teardrop markings are painted on the frill which is pretty cool.  I’m always a fan of bright display colors especially on ceratopsians and hadrosaurs.  The eyes are orange with black vertically slit viper-looking pupils (Procon puts these on a lot of its dino toys for some odd reason).  The tongue is pink but the rest of the inside of the mouth is the same white color as the outside area of its beak.

All in all, this model is not really something to write home about.  The reason I got it was because ceratopsians are my favorite kind of dinosaur and because it’s of a genus that isn’t too often seen in toy form.  (Jurassic Park made an action figure of one for The Lost World movie in the 90s and there is a tiny one in Safari’s feathered dinosaur tube.)  This figure is also roughly 1:40 scale so that’s another plus for me and a lot of other people as well.  This model should be relatively easy to find at any store or website that sells procon figures if you decide to pursue one.

Available on Amazon.com (here)