Everything Dinosaur Stocks the Schleich Tawa Dinosaur Model

The new for 2018 Schleich Tawa dinosaur model has arrived and is now in stock at Everything Dinosaur.  The Schleich Tawa is one of three theropod replicas introduced by the German-based figure manufacturer in 2018, but the only one that represents a hypercarnivore.  The other two theropods are the Schleich Oviraptor and the new colour variant of the Schleich Therizinosaurus.

The Schleich Tawa Dinosaur Model

The Schleich Tawa (Tawa hallae) Model is the Only Hypercarnivore Theropod to be Added to Date (2018)

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Tawa hallae – A Triassic Hypercarnivore

A hypercarnivore is an animal that has a diet of more than 70% meat, the diet of Oviraptor and Therizinosaurus is not that well understood, but Oviraptor may well have been omnivorous and Therizinosaurus could have been a relatively sedentary browser.  However, Tawa, a theropod that lived more than a hundred million years earlier, was most certainly carnivorous and perhaps a hunter of other dinosaurs such as Coelophysis.  The jaw may be slender, but it is lined with sharp and curved teeth, ideal for slicing through meat.  Tawa had strong grasping hands with each finger ending in a sharp claw, these hands were probably used to grasp and subdue small prey.

The Sharp Teeth and Grasping Hands of Tawa hallae

Ghost Ranch Location

This lithe dinosaur is known from the fossilised remains of several individuals recovered from sediments that make up part of the Petrified Forest Member of the famous Chinle Formation exposed at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

All the fossils found to date represent immature individuals or juveniles which measure between two to three metres in length.  However, a single femur (thigh bone) found in association with the other remains provides tantalising evidence that these fast-running dinosaurs could grow much larger, perhaps more than four metres in length.  The Ghost Ranch location has provided palaeontologists with a fantastic insight into a Late Triassic palaeoenvironment, a time when the Dinosauria was beginning to dominate terrestrial environments, but they shared this seasonal world with other reptiles and mammal-like reptiles too.

Tawa hallae was named and scientifically described in 2009, to read an article about this dinosaur’s discovery: New Theropod Fossil Provides Evidence of Dinosaur Diversity.

The Theropods of Ghost Ranch

Discovered by Edwin Colbert in 1947, the Coelophysis beds have produced more than 1,000 skeletons of Coelophysis, making this little Triassic theropod one of the best known of all the Dinosauria.  In truth, the first evidence of dinosaur fossils from this location was recorded in 1885, but the native American people would have been aware of the strange bones eroding out of the ground for hundreds of years before western scientists.  The genus name for Tawa comes from the local Hopi people’s language.  It is their word for the Puebloan sun god.  It is fitting that a dinosaur from a part of New Mexico which would have been familiar to native peoples, has been given a name honouring the language and customs of these people.

To view the Schleich Tawa model and all the other figures in the Schleich prehistoric animal model range: Schleich Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals.