Indie Squid Kid

I’ve mentioned Safari Ltd. a few times already on this blog (here and here, for example), so I probably don’t need to tell you that they tend to leave any competition in the dust when it comes to producing museum-quality plastic animal reproductions. One of their flagship brands is the Carnegie Collection, a line of toy dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that first came out in 1989. Originally based on fossils from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the design of these replicas has become increasingly detailed and scientifically accurate over the years. Most of these figures are scaled 1:40, but there are exceptions, such as the 1:10 scale Ichthyosaurus, which just came out last month.

The Safari Ichthyosaurus is 8 inces long and painted with a color pattern similar to the modern Common Dolphin (Delphinus). The coolest feature of this sculpt is, of course, the Mesozoic ammonite gripped tightly in its jaws.

Ichthyosaurs (“fish lizards”) were a group of highly-specialized marine reptiles that dominated the world’s oceans for much of the Mesozoic era. They were most definitely not dinosaurs…but you knew that already, right? Appearing in the fossil record in the first part of the Triassic period (~245 million years ago), ichthyosaurs thrived during the Jurassic, but they went extinct before the end of the Cretaceous period, about 90 million years ago. Their fish-like body shape is often compared to that of modern dolphins as a classic example of convergent evolution. Fossil stomach contents show that some species definitely preyed on ammonites and belemnites, and it’s likely that cephalopods were an imporant part of a balanced breakfast for most ichthyosaurs.

The genus Ichthyosuarus itself, which lived in the Early Jurassic seas that covered what is now southern England and continental Europe 199-189 million years ago, was first discovered in early 1800s. These finds, including many complete skeletons, played an important role in how we came to understand the age of the earth and helped define the then brand-new science of paleontology.

I picked this up from the gift shop of the NC Museum of Life + Science (along with Cryolophosaurus, this year’s other new Carnegie dinosaur) as a birthday present for myself. Suggested retail is $8.99, and if you don’t have access to a museum gift shop or speciality toy store, you can order it online from Amazon.com or directly from Safari.