From a Chinese toy company, under the brand name Recur, comes the newest Dunkleosteus. This vinyl Dunk isn’t an exacting model, but there’s a lot to like about it as a toy.
I bought mine off Amazon for about $18. The description on the website clearly got confused in translation: “Dinichthyidae Shark Figure Stuffed Sea Animal Fish Replica.” Okay… Among other toys, the company makes a shark which is described as both a great white and a megalodon. Their mosasaur looks seriously cool and well-detailed, and their dinosaurs are pretty nice.
The first thing I noticed is size. It’s as big as any of the non-plush Dunkleosteus models or toys, about 30cm long and substantial. Indeed, this particular Dunk was very well fed.
It’s all molded in one piece, but the manufacturers went to the trouble of coloring the inside of the mouth and the cheek membranes (pinkish) and the biting plates (white). The shaded green, going to white on the bottom, is a believable color scheme, and there is lots of texture around the armor and the head in general. Also present are little vertical skin-fold lines that give this toy a more lifelike feel than some flat-surface toys. The biting plates could have used a bit of the same attention, though.
The eyes are too small, I think, and readers know I don’t think the eel-like tail is correct even though it’s a pretty common supposition. The pectoral fins look small, but not unreasonably so. The designer went for a very low dorsal fin far back on the body: I think it likely too small for stabilizing a creature of this size.
Quibbles aside, this is a really nice toy. It’s big enough and sturdy enough to give a youngster years of enjoyable playtime, and it’s close enough to (likely) reality to serve as part of a school project, although CollectA and some others are out there for more verisimilitude.
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