Vault Tales 163 ToyTrio Ornithomimus, Giganotosaurus, Anomalocaris

All prehistoric Trio today! Wide range of odd animals…

GeoWorld Jurassic Hunters Ornithomimus

*It’s a very traditional **Ornithomimus** figure…in so far as there are many other **Ornithomimus** figures. There aren’t many.*

First up we have another Jurassic Hunters from GeoWorld. This time we are looking at a figure from Series 1 (the previous Thescelosaurus was Series 2), part of the original dinosaurs release, item number CL353K. It’s an interesting figure, to say the least, and a welcome one. There aren’t a lot of ornithomimid figures, in any species, but Ornithomimus is even less common–I think Struthiomimus used to show up more, and Jurassic Park made Gallimimus famous (and lets not forget their weird cousin Deinocheirus). So once again Jurassic Hunters came along with a unique figure of an animal that needed some attention.

If this **Ornithomimus** is **O. edmonticus**, then it’s more or less to scale with that ranger there. There’s a smaller species, as well. It’s hard to imagine that these ‘lightly built’ ‘small’ dinosaurs were still this big.

The figure itself is very much in the usual GeoWorld vein. It’s just a little old-style, with any feathering sculpted as a light fuzzy covering and nothing on the arms. So, hinting at it without really committing. Of course, as I mentioned, the GeoWorld figures became notorious for their ‘borrowing’ of existing designs from all kinds of sources, so the look came from that. The figure itself is a pretty decent representation of the animal. Long legs in a crazy ostrich body. Although some Jurassic Hunters figures are painted with incredibly bright and outlandish colours, this one is pretty muted. It’s mostly a light brown with weird little purple streaks. At least it’s toothless. It’s fine as a figure, and given that Ornithomimus figures are pretty uncommon, it’s probably worth trying to find it, although I don’t even know if they’re still available (and if they are, I’m not sure how easy they are to find).

COG Prehistoric Panorama Giganotosaurus

*One of the earliest **Giganotosaurus** figures…people familiar with DK books might recognize the style. And yes, I have two, just slightly with clearly different colours.*

Next up, another COG Ltd Prehistoric Panorama figure, this time from their Dinosaur set. I think this is the first dinosaur from the set that I’ve looked at on this blog. Sadly, it’s probably about as good as they get (I think I mentioned before…there are 6 sets, of 6 figures each…the Dinosaur set is easily the one that’s easiest to skip). It’s funny that it took this long for the ‘largest predatory dinosaur ever’ to get made as a figure, but here we are. Like the other figures, they came out around 2007 or 2008. At least they can be interesting with their small pieces. Easy to take apart and put back together.

And here they are, to scale with a small man. They are about 1:160, while the man is about 1:80…so he should actually be about half that height! And there’s one with its pieces scattered about. And yes, they could be interchanged if I wanted.

The figure itself is a bit…stumpy. The tail is way too short and the arms seem to long. But most importantly…in the original packaging this figure was labelled as Tyrannosaurus rex. Which is utter nonsense. There is a T. rex figure in the set, and it is labelled Giganotosaurus. Which is kind of instructive about the whole dinosaur set (did I mention that the dinos are…not great?) For a real die hard collector, this Giganotosaurus might be worth adding to a collection. Otherwise, there must be others in a small size like this…I think CollectA has a mini in their Mini Dino Box 2. I would say people should get that.

Safari Ltd Cambrian toob Anomalocaris

*It’s the mightiest predator of the sea! The Burgess Shale Cambrian sea anyway. **Anomalocaris** from the Safari Cambrian toob.*

Finally, we are revisiting the Safari Ltd Cambrian toob (I’ve looked at the Vauxia before) so I don’t need to say much about the toob…other than to complain that it is no longer available. Again. This time we are looking at the Anomalocaris figure. Given the wide range of animals found in the Cambrian, or just the Burgess Shale, I don’t think any company that makes figures from this time skips this giant weird predator. Maybe it would be like a dinosaur line skipping T. rex? Anyway, it was a given that it would be in the Safari toob–the only quibble is that all of the figures are similar in size, not scale, so this ‘giant’ doesn’t really look it.

It looks too big relative to the diver, who is about 1:12, and yet they are actually to scale with each other (more or less). It does help give perspective to what a ‘giant’ predator would have looked like then.

The figure itself is nicely sculpted, although it is apparently missing the 3 small flaps around the ‘neck’. It is also painted in a very simple manner; the base colour is dark orange, with some yellowish highlighting on the flaps, and some grey underneath. Otherwise, there are no other colours, not even on the distinctive eyes. Which is too bad, a little more colour, or some washes, might have made it pop more. Still, it’s a nice figure to have, and it’s part of a noteworthy set. Definitely worth trying to track down the Safari Cambrian toob if you can.

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