Haolonggood has once again given us another high demand dinosaur that’s been mostly ignored by other toy companies. In doing so, they’ve helped me complete my decade long quest to own my favorite ceratopsids: Pachyrhinosaurus, Nasutoceratops, Einiosaurus, Centrosaurus, Pentaceratops and now finally, Chasmosaurus. To see them all lined up alongside each other is a rewarding experience that adds a level of completion to my collection that took too long to achieve.
Why is Chasmosaurus one of my favorite ceratopsids? With its modest size and conservative head gear it is not as awe inspiring as some of its larger and/or more flamboyant relatives. Still, it is a dinosaur that has remained a constant in my life, featuring heavily in the media I grew up with. The magnificent painting of Chasmosaurus by Wayne Barlowe that adorns the cover of Peter Dodson’s The Horned Dinosaurs has always captured my imagination, as has its inclusion in the DinoPix book I spent countless hours looking at in my youth. It’s the most impressively rendered dinosaur in the 1970 film When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and I got to see the skeleton of one in person at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. It has just always been around and making an impact in my life.
Other Chasmosaurus toys have been made over the years but they’re few and far between. Noteworthy figures include the one made for the Royal Ontario Museum, which is perhaps the oldest, action figures in the Tyco Dino-Rider, Kenner Lost World, and Beasts of the Mesozoic toy lines, and the Kaiyodo DinoLand figure, which is an absolute masterpiece (it’s also identical to the one in DinoPix). And there are others too, like the old CollectA toy and the PNSO mini, but for myself this figure by Haolonggood is the second Chasmosaurus to adorn my cabinet whose only other example of the genus is the Safari TOOB figure.
The Haolonggood Chasmosaurus is small, about the size of their Kosmoceratops. It measures 5.25” (13.335 cm) long and stands about 2” (5.08 cm) tall at the shoulder. Gregory Paul estimated that C. belli measured 15’ (4.8 meters) while C. russelli measured about 14’ (4.3 meters). This puts the figure at 1/35 in scale, which is what HLG advertises the figure as.
As mentioned above, there are currently two described species of Chasmosaurus. There has been much discussion over which species this figure represents, and the consensus seems to be that it represents C. belli. This is due to the shape of the frill, which differs between the two species. According to Gregory Paul’s The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, the back of the frill has a shallow V-shape in C. belli, with straight sides. The back of the frill in C. russelli is more of a shallow U-shape, with convex sides. That said, C. russelli has more pronounced brow horns than C. belli, and so does this figure. Since horns are covered by keratin sheaths in life, I think it’s alright to assume that the figure accurately represents C. belli. We can’t be certain what anything other than the horn core would have looked like. If you want it to represent C. russelli that’s fine too though, I won’t tell. There is also the possibility that the genus Vagaceratops is a Chamosaurus, in which case I suppose I already had a Chamosaurus in my collection!
The toy is presented in a gentle trot, with only the tips of the fingers and toes touching the ground as it runs along. Although moving quickly it doesn’t appear to be in a hurry, maybe it’s just trying to catch up with the herd. The anatomy of the hands is mostly accurate, with the last two digits reduced but still possessing claws. The body has a nicely rounded and chunky toro, thick thighs, muscular calves, and an appropriately short tail.
Details on the head include finely sculpted epoccipitals along the sides of the frill and a covering of pebbly scales with rows of larger scales highlighting where the squamosal and parietal bones meet as well as down the midline of the frill. These larger scales cluster together where they meet between the brow horns. As usual, the back of the frill has the same details as the front. The beak is more sharply defined here than on the recent Kosmoceratops.
The body is covered in pebbly scales too but they’re not as fine as those on the Kosmoceratops, they’re not as proportionally large as those on figures like the Nasutoceratops either though. I would say they’re the right size for making the figure look texturally interesting while also being believable. Larger feature scales are randomly distributed across the body. A row of larger scales runs down the midline of the back. There’s also some wrinkling in the skin, especially along the neck, lower torso, and base of the tail. Last but not least, all the expected bodily orifices are present.
The Haolonggood Chasmosaurus comes in two colors, red and green, basically. The green seems to be the standout figure amongst collectors, and I agree with the masses and went with the green variant. It’s painted in two shades of green with one being pale and dull and the other being darker and more vibrant. The contrast between the two creates a stunning camo-like effect that would certainly conceal this animal well in the lush coastal environment of the Dinosaur Park Formation.
Of course, there are subtle things to appreciate about the paintjob too. It’s more complex than “two shades of green”. The head has a nice blending of the two colors with a touch of brown on the lower jaw and neck. The frill is edged in dark brown and there are dark brown squiggles on both sides of the frill. A hint of brown runs down the midline of the back but quickly fades away into the adjacent green. The feet are dark brown with a shiny finish, making it appear as though this animal’s feet are stained from the mud that would be ever present in its environment. The nails are black, and the beak is gray and dark brown. The horns are mostly gray, but some have a touch of brown too, like the larger hornlets on the corners of the frill. The shiny eyes are blue with black pupils.
The paintjob is stellar overall, and I have no complaints, at least not about the green version. I’m convinced that Haolonggood does the best paintjobs around and they only seem to be getting better. I suppose a flash of color on the frill would have been good, but I like to think that this Chasmosaurus is either a female or a male outside the breeding season.
Chasmosaurus is an underrated but important dinosaur. It is a genus for which we have many good specimens of multiple ages and is the namesake for one of the two main groups of ceratopsids. It also lived in the wickedly awesome and diverse Dinosaur Park Formation with many other iconic dinosaurs now well represented in toy form. A good figure of this genus was long overdue and this Haolonggood model should generate excitement in all dinosaur collectors. It is currently available online for about $12-20 depending on where you shop.
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