By the time of the Late Miocene, the proboscideans were well-established across much of the world. There were deinotheres, mammutids, stegodonts, ambelodonts, and gomphotheres. And it was from the latter group that a very special beast arose somewhere between eight and six million years ago: Stegotetrabelodon, the first known member of the family Elephantidae, the true elephants. Four species are currently recognised:...
Mattel’s Jurassic World line will be continuing into 2027, and their first (and presumably not last) Tyrannosaurus rex of the year will be the Legacy Collection Reimagined Real Feel Tour Takeover toy. Wow, that was a mouthful. That extra loud colour scheme should be very familiar to you. It’s based on the touring vehicles from the first Jurassic Park film....
Last year saw the release of what I still consider to be the best pterosaur action figure ever made, the Aerial Ambush Quetzalcoatlus. As I said in my review of it, it was a true marvel of pterosaur toy engineering. Not just big and impressive, it also had the ability to realistically stand quadrupedally (as pterosaurs did) and open its...
Favorite has just revealed a new Spinosaurus toy. The blue and red are a striking colour combination. Pity that this Spinosaurus, like many others, has to balance on its foreclaws, but it’s still a nice pose....
Andrews´ leader Welcome to a first-rate detective story that will either succeed or fizzle out and be forgotten! I’m either dealing with a very rare figure here, or you’re going to laugh at me because I’m on a completely wrong track. What is the reason for my confusion and this unusual introduction? Well, a few years ago when I interviewed...
The last Planet Wow figure that I can review is the Dakosaurus. In addition to their crocodylomorph figures I’ve reviewed so far, the company also released a Sarcosuchus, though as a secret figure or something like that. But unfortunately, I don’t have that one. Everything you need to know about the relationship between Blue Ocean and Planet Wow and who...
Believe it or not, this, what appears to be a chewed up wad of bubble gum, is actually a dinosaur toy. Plateosaurus to be exact. Plateosaurus is a dinosaur we all recognize that was once much more popular than it is today. It used to be one of the staple dinosaur toys and Marx, MPC, UKRD, Bullyland, Carnegie, Kaiyodo, and...
I think it was the Peter Zallinger book Prehistoric Animals that first introduced me to the hornless rhinoceros titan Baluchitherium back in the early 1980s. A few years later, I read in an issue of Zoobooks that the name had been changed to Indricotherium. And shortly after Walking With Prehistoric Beasts aired in 2001, I learned the name had been...
With the release of the Hammond Collection Hypsilophodon, Mattel has added another book canon dinosaur to the HC roster. Hypsilophodon appears in The Lost World novel, living amongst the other wild dinosaurs on Isla Sorna. In Jurassic Park, there’s a section of the park tour called Hypsilophodont Highlands, but it is populated by Dryosaurus, said in the book to be...
Before I start with the actual review of the figure, I just want to thank our readers who, in these fast-paced times, still appreciate the simple, good old form of a written text complemented with pictures. I don’t think we’re going to die out; it’s more likely to go for us like the record collectors, who have found their niche...
On the go among wild plants on my roof terrace Another strange crocodile species Planet Wow has made a wobbly rubber figure of is Anatosuchus, the interesting “duck crocodile”. Planet Wow is a trademark of a publisher named “Blue Ocean”, located in Stuttgart, Germany. They release magazines for children with blind bags of all kinds of animals added to them....
As announced, I’m reviewing more prehistoric crocodiles from Planet Wow, a brand of the publisher Blue Ocean, about which I’ve already written everything necessary in this review of Simosuchus: https://dinotoyblog.com/simosuchus-planet-wow-by-blue-ocean . Interestingly, Desmatosuchus, although released in the line, isn’t actually a real crocodile at all, but an aetosaur. Those, according to Wikipedia, were medium- to large-sized omnivorous or herbivorous pseudosuchians,...
