
Found within the Woburn Sands Formation in England and formally described in 1874, Craterosaurus was a comparatively small stegosaur that lived in the course of the Early Cretaceous some 113-112 million years in the past.

Mattel launched the primary and up to now solely Craterosaurus toy in 2024 as a part of their Hazard Pack collection. It’s sculpted in an alert pose with its legs bent and its tail curling downward and barely to the left. From nostril to tail tip, it measures about 17.5 cm lengthy and stands 9 cm tall on the factors of its again plates.

The principle colors are gold and really pale beige with darkish brown for the beak and the ten giant plates on its again and yellow for the eyes. It’s a color scheme that’s neither outstanding nor repulsive to the attention, but it surely does make the animal stand out among the many different Mattel stegosaurs.


The Craterosaurus’ neck is hinged on the base, permitting it to maneuver up or down. The legs rotate on the shoulders and hips and the tail rotates on the base, however as at all times, what’s the purpose in doing so? Pulling up on the fourth plate on the best hand facet reveals the scan code. The Jurassic World brand is sculpted into the only of the best hind foot.

Save for just a few small osteoderms across the shoulders, this stegosaur’s pores and skin texture consists of small rounded scales throughout, together with just a few wrinkles right here and there. The Craterosaurus is unmistakably a stegosaur, with a small head, giant physique, and a tail held properly off the bottom. There are ten pairs of plates altogether, and 6 pairs of more and more lengthy spikes on the tail, the longest being close to the tip. Not surprisingly, the toes have the incorrect variety of digits. Stegosaurs are recognized to have had 5 and three digits on their entrance and hind toes respectively, however on this toy, there are 4 digits on all of the toes.

Assessing the accuracy of the remainder of this stegosaur is virtually unattainable on account of the truth that Craterosaurus is just recognized from only one single small bone. Initially it was considered a fraction of skull, however the legendary paleozoologist Franz Nopcsa appropriately decided it to be a part of the neural arch of a vertebra in 1912. We don’t know in regards to the precise form and preparations of its plates and spikes, we don’t know the way large it grew to be, and certainly, it might be a junior synonym of Regnosaurus, one other Early Cretaceous stegosaur presently recognized solely from a jaw fragment. Subsequently, essentially the most anybody can actually say about Mattel’s reconstruction is that it’s believable. That’s it.

General, the Jurassic World Craterosaurus isn’t a spectacular toy, but it surely definitely is a novel one, and like the opposite Mattel toys I’ve reviewed right here, I can not conceive of a kid not deriving enjoyment from enjoying with it.

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