Having been described in 1908 and being the eponymous ankylosaurid, Ankylosaurus has lengthy been a staple of dinosaur toys. Initially identified from slightly fragmentary materials, reconstructions of this dinosaur traditionally advanced from Stegosaurus-like earlier than the tail-club was identified, to the model that was made acquainted by Rudolph Zallinger’s 1947 Age of Reptiles mural and the 1964 World’s Honest mannequin, with their nodosaur-like spikes, sprawling limbs, and dragging tail-clubs. These turned the premise for a lot of depictions of Ankylosaurus, together with toys, till extra full, nearer family had been discovered for reference. Sadly, the Jurassic Park/World franchise has carried many of those inaccuracies over to the current day.
That leads us to the topic of this assessment, the small Bullyland Ankylosaurus which was apparently produced in 1987, a time the place ankylosaurids had been higher identified, but this nonetheless appeared like a throwback to the Sixties. The limbs are clearly very sprawling, giving it a squat posture, and the tail is lowered in order that the membership nearly touches the bottom. The osteoderms lining the flanks aren’t as pointy and nodosaur (particularly Edmontonia)-like as within the older depictions, however I believe that was merely to make the determine much less harmful for youths to deal with.
A slightly unusual characteristic is that the tail-club solely consists of two giant, paired osteoderms, although a whole membership was identified by 1910, displaying that it had two smaller osteoderms on the tip too. I believe the World’s Honest mannequin could have had an analogous membership, however I can’t discover good images of it, so it’s tough to match. Both manner, it’s slightly simplified in comparison with the true deal, and the tail itself additionally appears to be too quick and thick. The size of the tail appears just like early depictions of Scolosaurus, which for some purpose was depicted with a really quick tail and a tail-club with spikes on it. The tail of the primary identified specimen of that dinosaur solely preserved the basal a part of the tail, which presumably led to this interpretation.
The cranium of Ankylosaurus was additionally utterly identified from a really early stage, which suggests it needs to be pretty appropriate right here, proper? Nicely, form of; it appears to have the precise variety of horns and bumps in roughly the precise locations, they’re simply pointing in wildly totally different instructions from what’s identified from the fossils. Whereas the horns behind the eyes and on the “cheeks” pointed backwards and up and down in the true animal, respectively, right here they level to the perimeters and nearly in the direction of the entrance! The higher horns additionally appear to be bigger than the decrease, although the alternative was true. The neck additionally lacks the cervical half-ring armour, however their precise configuration has lengthy been unsure, with the newest publication suggesting two had been current, as in shut family. The truth is, this determine barely even has a neck…
Other than the apparent inaccuracies, the determine is immediately recognisable as an ankylosaur, however maybe not clearly as Ankylosaurus itself, not having the precise form of the top or tail-club. Like among the different small Bullyland figures, there’s additionally one thing mammalian about it which is tough to explain, maybe it’s the pudgy form and expressive eyes. Its pose seems to be prefer it’s fortunately waddling alongside, and the physique does look sufficiently broad. The general texture additionally appears appropriately scaled and osteoderm-covered.
The determine is 8 cm from snout to tail-club tip, and it’s solely about 2.5 cm tall. As most of the different small Bullyland figures, and in contrast to most different dinosaur toys, the determine may be very darkish, nearly black or darkish gray. The one paint appears to be the yellow eyes with black pupils that look again, giving it an lovely look from the facet, however a derpy look from the entrance. I ought to observe that that is apparently solely certainly one of varied color variants, there being a minimum of a light greyish and reddish brown model as properly.
So to sum up, I believe this can be a fairly cute determine reflecting some fascinating historic developments in Ankylosaurus restorations. Whereas in fact removed from anatomically correct, I believe previous toys that mirror older hypotheses after they had been nonetheless related are a minimum of worthy for this, not like these which might be simply inaccurate on account of a complete disregard of present science (*cough* Jurassic World *cough*). And, trying on the final image, who can resist that side-eyed smirk anyway?
Disclaimer: hyperlinks to Ebay and Amazon on the DinoToyBlog are affiliate hyperlinks, so we make a small fee when you use them. Thanks for supporting us!
Trending Merchandise
