The newest, coolest Dunkleosteus model hits the market

I have the new CollectA Dunkleosteus terrelli, and it’s marvelous. 

First, disclosure: CollectA sent me one to review. They must have thought I’d like it, and I do.  It became my favorite model Dunk the minute I took it out of the box. It bears notice that the company is making the Dunk a centerpiece: it’s on the covers of the catalogs they included and even on a tote bag. 

It’s the biggest of the commercial models, except for that odd Chinese foam knockoff of the Schleich dunk, and it’s hefty and solid. The jaw moves, and the anatomical details, even the speculative ones, all look right.

I thought from early photos there was sort of a hump on the back, but “in person,” the model looks much more streamlined. CollectA’s Peter Leung explained, “The hump (which isn't supposed to be anything of the sort) is simply the result of having the bony skull embedded in the body of the Dunkleosteus, rather than to just have it resting on the surface of the fish like a suit of armour as other firms have done.”  In that respect it’s a bit like the much smaller Safari Dunk, the most streamlined of the bunch.  The head shape, too, is more streamlined, not as blocky as in some models, and the effect is of a powerful but hydrodynamically efficient predator. The sclerotic rings are in the eye sockets, not protruding. The joints in the armor are visible, but don’t have much effect on water flow. The fins are rounded, and they too look right, as does the asymmetrical tail with a large lower lobe.  (It may not be correct, as there was a recent paper arguing for a sharklike tail, but it LOOKS right as a natural part of the creature.)  There are lines of bumps I originally took for scutes, but Leung wrote to me, "As the skull is the only thing preserved in the fossil record the rest of the animal is pure speculation as any artist or modeller has to do. No one for instance is certain on how the tail may have looked.  One has to look at contemporary and modern species and also think what will make the model attractive both visually and touch-wise. The skin ornamentations are not scutes but I based them on the skin of the Devonian fossil fish Gemuendina and other skin decoration on those of large modern fishes such as the Wolf Fish.”

In my estimation, this is about as good as a model can get without seeing the real thing. Comparing it to my other Dunks, this one is not quite as terrifying as Jeff Johnson’s fierce-looking resin kit and not as weird as the Schleich dunk. It’s a little more rounded than the shark-tailed Favorite model (whose artist we know also did a lot of research) and has much, MUCH more surface detail than any other vinyl model.    Speculation and all, this is an amazing job.