New Additions to the Wild Safari Prehistoric World Range

It is quite rare for us to mention a Late Jurassic marine crocodile and an American glyptodont in the same sentence, they do tend to make quite odd bedfellows, but as the first of the 2016 models from Safari Ltd are now in stock we can discuss Plesiosuchus and Doedicurus together.

The Wild Safari Prehistoric World Plesiosuchus Model

Available from Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Safari Ltd

Plesiosuchus and Doedicurus

The marine crocodile we refer to is of course the Plesiosuchus (metriorhynchid), an animal very much at home in a marine environment.  The glyptodont in question is the Wild Safari Prehistoric World Doedicurus, a re-issue of a model that was retired a couple of years ago.  It makes a welcome return to this ever expanding model range.

The Wild Safari Prehistoric World Doedicurus Model

Good old “pestle tail” is back.

Picture credit: Safari Ltd

New Additions to the Safari Ltd Model Range

Talk about contrasting prehistoric animals, the streamlined and smooth-skinned Plesiosuchus represents a reptile that swam in the shallow tropical seas that covered Europe a little over 150 million years ago.  Whereas, the scaly, armour plated Doedicurus, with its vicious medieval club tail, thrived on the open grasslands of southern North America and South America some 2 million years ago.  Indeed, fossil evidence (all those ossicles and scutes), suggests that this terrestrial herbivore may have survived in isolated pockets up to around 10,000 years ago.

The models do have a number of things in common.  For example, they both show lots of detail and each replica is hand-painted.  In addition, Everything Dinosaur will be supplying a fact sheet all about the prehistoric animal with every model we sell.

Getting to Grips with a Glyptodont

Everything Dinosaur’s illustration is in the centre.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view these two models and the rest of the Safari Ltd Prehistoric Animal model range: Safari Ltd Prehistoric World Figures.

Our team members research and write fact sheets for every named prehistoric animal model we sell.  This has become quite an undertaking and the company has built up a portfolio of several hundred data sheets.  The Doedicurus fact sheet was written about two years ago, but it has recently been updated.  The Plesiosuchus fact sheet was approved in November, and a number have already been printed off so that they can be sent out with those orders from customers who had reserved models with us.

Model Measurements

The Plesiosuchus replica measures around seventeen centimetres in length, although this is a not to scale model, given that the largest genus of Plesiosuchus known to science reached a length of around seven metres, the Wild Safari Prehistoric World Plesiosuchus is roughly in 1:40 scale.  The Doedicurus model is smaller.  It measures a fraction under eleven centimetres long.  Given that the largest specimens of Doedicurus (D. clavicaudatus) are estimated to have been three metres long, this makes the model around the 1:27 scale size.

The Doedicurus makes a welcome return and it is joined by a marine crocodile model.  Marine crocodiles are rare sculpts from the mainstream factories and we are sure model collectors are going to be as delighted as we are.  Strange, that the first two, new for 2016 models released from Safari Ltd are not actually dinosaurs.