Earlier than I begin this evaluation, I want to thank our beneficiant pals at Glad Hen Toys for offering this evaluation pattern. Of all of Haolonggood’s 2024 releases, that is the one I used to be most excited for, so I’m honored to have been in a position to obtain it as a present.
Since shifting to Utah in 2016 and gathering dinosaurs in 2019, I’ve develop into more and more fascinated with the prehistoric fauna of my present dwelling. Utahceratops gettyi was described from fossils found at Grand Staircase-Escalante Nationwide Monument in Kane and Garfield Counties in southwestern Utah. The world has produced different wonderful dinosaurs, together with Diabloceratops eatoni, Gryposaurus monumentensis, and Lythronax argestes. The holotype specimen UMNG VP 16784, which consists of a partial cranium, is deposited on the Utah Museum of Pure Historical past, a brief stroll from my job within the College of Utah Analysis Park in Salt Lake Metropolis! Utahceratops lived within the Late Cretaceous of Laramidia, in all probability in riparian areas consisting of lowland humid woodlands, peat swamps, and lakes that bordered the Western Inside Seaway. As we speak the area is extraordinarily variable, starting from lowland Nice Basin Desert to montane coniferous forests. Utahceratops, which was solely described on 2010, has not obtained quite a lot of consideration within the toy/determine realm. I do know of some, together with these by CollectA (2012), Creative Beast Studio (2021), and the main target of right this moment’s evaluation, the 2024 fashions by Haolonggood.
Utahceratops was a hefty animal, believed to common 6-7 meters in size. The impartial posture of this Haolonggood mannequin involves about 17.5 cm in size, giving it a scale of 1:35-1:40. Nevertheless, utilizing the cranium size as a metric (n=9.0 cm), the size involves 1:26 primarily based on the cranium reconstruction within the unique description by Sampson et al., thus scaling bigger than the marketed 1:35. Provided that solely about 70% of post-cranial materials is thought, I’m more likely to aspect with the size primarily based on cranium metrics (I included each within the Weblog tags, above).
As talked about above, the animal is sculpted in a comparatively impartial pose. The feel could be very good, with ample wrinkles over the physique. Just a few rows of osteoderms run down the again. To me probably the most spectacular a part of the sculpt is the pebbled scale texture protecting the frill. All horns look like current, together with the ten working down both sides of the frill. One factor I observed, is that the hole within the middle of the highest of the frill appears to be like way more slim that each one different reconstructions I’ve seen. I’m not certain if that is simply Haolonggood’s fashion, or it displays current discovery I’ve not been in a position to come throughout.
Like different Haolonggood figures, the Utahceratops is available in two colours, ‘orange’ (Gong Wang) and ‘inexperienced’ (Ding De Solar); we’re solely trying on the former right here. Usually, I don’t have a powerful choice for coloration with Haolonggood’s figures, however this time I particularly went for Gong Wang as I favored the coloration of the frill extra. The physique is painted with alternating wavy traces which, truthfully, look lots like the present geology of the place Utahceratops was found! You may discover somewhat nick within the paint on the correct aspect (the animal’s proper) of my determine. It got here that approach, and I can solely assume it was a random blemish that occurred someplace alongside the way in which and that it shouldn’t be anticipated in different figures.
This can be a very nice determine of an attention-grabbing species, and my pleasure for it was justified. In hand it doesn’t disappoint. Comes really helpful to collectors of attention-grabbing taxa. It’s a marked enchancment of the CollectA mannequin, and lacks the articulations of the Inventive Beast Studio mannequin. Accessible from Happy Hen Toys in america or wherever Haolonggood figures are bought.
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