Although this is not a figure our dear fellow reviewer EmperorDinobot (Luis Perez) had planned to review while he was still with us, I’d still like to dedicate this one to him, as this is the first review I’ve started up since his untimely passing on the 21st of July. Over the past few years, and shortly prior to his passing, we have had lots of correspondence regarding the struggles in our personal lives, both mental and physical. He had quite a bit he was dealing with, but throughout it all he was nothing but supportive, even if I feel my conditions pale much in comparison to what he was going through. I truly still miss his presence with us to this day, even if I didn’t known him personally beyond what we shared with each other. He was an avid reviewer of the Mattel Jurassic World line, like myself, Fembrogon, Gwangi, Suspsy, and others here, with his very last review posted in January of the pair of Mattel Jurassic World Masiakasaurus. And as this is a review for yet another Mattel Jurassic World figure, I want this to be in tribute to him. May he now rest in peace.
After starting out with initially just Carnotaurus as far as the Abelisauridae goes, the Mattel Jurassic World toy line has since greatly expanded upon their offerings for this interesting family of theropod dinosaurs. In fact they have produced more abelisaurids then any other family of theropod dinosaurs with a total of 11 genera at this time. Only the Ceratopsidae, an ornithischian dinosaur family, beats them out for overall family of dinosaurs with a total of 14 currently. In any case, four of those abelisaurids are from this year alone, with Abelisaurus, Aucasaurus, Kryptops, and lastly Guemesia, which is the subject of this review. Mattel has also been on a trend lately with picking recently described animals to include in their toyline, such as this year’s Ceratosuchops, Ceoptera, Iani, Jakapil, Minqaria, Thapunngaka, Yuxisaurus, and last year’s Stegouros, all named within the past five years (there was also the Farlowichnus released this year, based on an ichnotaxon named in 2023, which is an animal only known from its fossilized footprints). Guemesia is among these, as it was only named in 2022, and is the first toy of it to be released. It is one of the smallest abelisaurids discovered so far.
As mentioned prior, Guemesia was described in a 2022 article by Federico Agnolín et al, and is only known from a braincase, a portion of the skull. It was named after Martín Miguel de Güemes who passed away over 200 years prior to its description (1821). Güemes was from Salta, the capital city of Salta Province, and had fought against the royalist forces loyal to Spain there during the Argentine War of Independence. Guemesia, like its namesake, was found in the same province, located in northwestern Argentina, a region that dinosaur finds are rare in. More specifically it was found in what is now the Los Blanquitos Formation. It lived during the late Campanian to the early Maastrichtian, 72 million years ago, near the end of the Late Cretaceous period. The only other dinosaur material from this formation consists of Unquillosaurus, a maniraptoran theropod known only from a left pubis, which is a part of the pelvis, and some fragmentary titanosaur sauropod material. As there is only a braincase present for Guemesia, there isn’t much to go off on as far as recreating an in-the-flesh reconstruction, without heavily inferring from its relatives, the other abelisaurids. Guemesia falls under the clade Brachyrostra, which is in the subfamily Carnotaurinae, and its closest relatives would have been Ekrixinatosaurus, Elemgasem, Ilokelesia, Llukalkan, Niebla, and Skorpiovenator, most of which consist of fragmentary material, with only Ekrixinatosaurus, and Skorpiovenator having a substantial amount of material to go off of. Worth noting that Mattel has also made figures of both the Ekrixinatosaurus in 2024, and Skorpiovenator in 2022 (which also received a repaint in 2023 in a set with Iguanodon).
Moving on to the figure itself, it is a highly speculative, although informed, if stylized, reconstruction. The abstract of the paper mentions the braincase lacks indications of horns and other protrusions being present like in the more famous Carnotaurus and Majungasaurus. The sculpt of the figure is at least consistent with this. The arms are appropriately small, lack an elbow, and have only four tiny digits. This is in contrast to the majority of the abelisaurid figures Mattel has produced so far, which often feature oversized arms with elbows (which may be in part due to the Fallen Kingdom Carnotaurus film design having elbows, but regardless it is still incorrect), and at times an incorrect number of digits (the Rugops perhaps being the worst offender with its tyrannosaurid style hands). The feet and thighs are a bit oversized, but the rest of proportions seem sound based on its relatives more or less. The head of the figure is sculpted in spike-like scales, giving it an almost dragon-like look, and there are small spikes running down the back of the head to the tail. The rest of the figure is sculpted with a fine scaly skin. Its more famous relative Carnotaurus has substantial skin material which might potentially have been good reference material to go off of instead, but as Guemesia itself has barely any material to go off, who knows what its skin would have been like. Though at least they didn’t give it a coat of feathers as they did with their Rugops, which probably would have been unlikely, again considering the substantial amount of material we have from Carnotaurus.
The coloration is pretty simple, but an eye pleasing one. The primary body color is a dark grey, with a bit of red from the top of the head, running down the back to the tail. The only other coloration excluding the eyes, teeth, and mouth, is the lower jaw which has been cast in a light tan colored plastic. It gives it a devilish look to it, but that’s perhaps no surprise considering its larger and more famous relative Carnotaurus is typically depicted in a red coloration of some such (or pink and orange, but typically in the red or warm color range). As far as articulation goes, it’s the pretty typical amount for figures in this size and price range. There is articulation at the jaw, a swivel at the neck allowing the neck to be moved up and down, joints at the shoulders, hips, and the pointless as ever rotating joint on the tail.
There isn’t much else to say with this one, but I find this to be an adorable inclusion among the many abelisaurid figures Mattel has made so far. Its wave mates were the Farlowichnus, and the Hypsilophodon, and was one of the final toys in the short lived Chaos Theory assortment to release before the Rebirth wave hit stores in June (or late May). As such it’s also one of the last figures to feature the disliked scan pull tab feature, as the Rebirth line of figures has done away with those, back to how they were prior to the 2022 Dominion line and on. I got mine from Big Bad Toy Store alongside the Hysilophodon, both of which are still available there. There may be other online retailers that carry them though. If you want them, I’d suggest going for them while they are still available for MSRP.
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