CollectA and a Prehistoric Giant from Poland – Lisowicia bojani

To celebrate the production of the CollectA Deluxe 1:20 scale model of Lisowicia bojani, a prehistoric animal from Poland, Everything Dinosaur has prepared a special blog post in Polish for all our Polish customers and friends.

Lisowicia bojani

Those clever and talented people at CollectA have created the biggest dinosaur line in the world, but they don’t just make models of dinosaurs, there are lots of other prehistoric animals too and later on this year (mid 2020), Polish model collectors will be able to get their hands on their very own Polish prehistoric animal model.  A figure that represents one of the most important discoveries made in Europe by vertebrate palaeontologists this century.

CollectA will be introducing a 1:20 scale replica of Lisowicia bojani, a giant herbivore that roamed Silesia, southern Poland, more than 200 million years ago.

A Photograph of One of the Production Figures of the CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia bojani Model

CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia bojani.
The CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia bojani 1:20 scale model. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Late Triassic Dicynodont

A clay pit (the Lipie Śląskie clay pit), close to the village of Lisowice, has provided scientists with thousands of fossil bones to study.  The fossils represent a wide variety of vertebrates including predatory dinosaurs, pterosaurs and large amphibians that once lived in a low-lying, wetland environment.

Polish scientists have played a prominent role in excavating the site and describing the fossil discoveries.  When giant limb bones were unearthed, researchers thought that they had found the remains of a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur (sauropod), but it was soon realised that these colossal and robust bones came from an enormous dicynodont (die-sigh-no-dont), an animal more closely related to us (Homo sapiens), than to any dinosaur!

The CollectA Deluxe 1:20 Scale Lisowicia bojani Model

Lisowicia bojani model (CollectA Deluxe).
CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia bojani model.  Like most dicynodonts, Lisowicia was toothless and it had a large beak for cropping vegetation.  The articulated jaw on the CollectA Deluxe model helps to show these features. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Defining Dicynodonts

Dicynodonts are a group of extinct quadrupeds which are distantly related to modern mammals.  They first evolved in the Permian geological period, more than 70 different genera have been named and described.  Although the strata in which the fossils of Lisowicia were found have proved very difficult to date, they could be at least 10 million years younger than any previously described dicynodont fossil material known to science.

Not only was Lisowicia bojani one of the last dicynodonts to have roamed our planet, it was by far the biggest.  Scientists have estimated that Lisowicia measured 4.5 metres long and had a hip height in excess of 2 metres.  Lisowicia is believed to have been at least 40% bigger than any other known dicynodont.  Intriguingly, this elephant-sized animal was the largest animal known from the Late Triassic of Poland, and to date, no fossils of big, plant-eating dinosaurs have been found in this part of Europe, although their fossils have been found in similarly aged rocks elsewhere.

A Geological Ruler Helps to Show the Size of the CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia Model

The CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia bojani model.
The ruler helps to show the size of the CollectA Lisowicia model.  The CollectA Deluxe Lisowicia measures just under 20 cm long. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

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Named and Scientifically Described in 2018

Formally named and described in 2018, the genus name honours the Polish village of Lisowice, whilst the species name honours the German-born comparative anatomist Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“It is great to have a model of a Polish prehistoric animal such as Lisowicia bojani added to the CollectA Deluxe model range.  We are sure that collectors in Poland are going to be delighted with this new replica, the beautiful and very detailed model depicts an extinct, giant dicynodont that is known only from Poland.  It is a model of an animal that was a large as an elephant, a long extinct creature that has helped palaeontologists to better understand Late Triassic ecosystems of Europe.”

To view the range of CollectA Deluxe prehistoric animals and dinosaurs available from Everything Dinosaur: CollectA Deluxe Prehistoric Life.