My sincerest thanks to Happy Hen Toys for their generosity in sending me this figure to review here. This figure is for sale over there, along with many more prehistoric animals from numerous fan favorite brands like CollectA, Haolonggood, PNSO, Safari Ltd, and so many more. Now let’s begin the review!
It isn’t often figures of prehistoric amphibians are made. In fact only a handful have been made from a few companies, most during or after the 1990’s. Those with the most prominent selection have been from Play Vision’s 1998 Prehistoric Amphibians set, Kaiyodo’s Dinotales in the early to mid 2000’s, and Yowie’s Lost Kingdoms, also released during the mid 2000’s. There have been a sprinkling of figures since, and so it was a great surprise when CollectA had announced like three years ago from now that we would be getting Koolasuchus of all things. This is the first time this animal has had a mass produced figure, and how long it’s been in the waiting. And why Koolasuchus at all one might ask?
Shortly after it was described and named in 1997 by Anne Warren et al, it was given the spotlight in BBC’s 1999 series Walking with Dinosaurs, and more specifically the Spirits of the Ice Forest episode. Ever since I was a child when I first watched the series, I had a fixation on this goofy looking temnospondyl, with its large head and tiny limbs, living in the polar south, climbing rather dopey-like out of its pond during the warmer summer period, and returning as the harsh winter began. Thanks to its appearance in the series, and with a surprisingly decent amount of screen time it was given, it’s no surprise it remains as one of the more familiar, if not popular prehistoric amphibians out there. It also helps that it was one of the largest temnospondyls, and excluding their likely descendants, the lissamphibians (which includes all extant, or still living amphibian genera), was one of the last of its kind, living during the Early Cretaceous period.
The name “Koolasuchus” is both named after Lesley Kool, who not only found some of the material, but also helped prepare it, and the Greek Souchos, for crocodile, due to many temnospondyls sharing a similar bauplan with them. The species name “cleelandi” is named after Mike Cleeland who found the holotype mandible. As mentioned earlier Koolasuchus was from the polar south, particularly from what is now Victoria, Australia, and approximately lived during the Barremian-Aptian stages of the Early Cretaceous period, 125–120 million years ago. It was part of the Wonthaggi Formation, and lived alongside an assortment of dinosaurs and early mammals, represented by scrappy remains currently. While it was depicted as living with Muttaburrasaurus and Leaellynasaura in Walking with Dinosaurs, they were separated by several million years apart, if not distance as well.
Despite its popularity, Koolasuchus itself is known from poor fossil material, the best of which consists of the holotype NMV P186213, a set of left and right ramus, parts of the mandible, and potentially a partial skull, though it remains yet to be described (see the above paper linked from Warren et al, 1997, and additionally this paper from Warren and Marsicano, 2000). Most of its following reconstructions, including the Walking with Dinosaurs depiction, and even the subject of review here, appears to be based on its relatives like Siderops kehli, from the Early Jurassic. Siderops in particular is known from much better remains then Koolasuchus, and was also found in Australia, though in the state of Queensland. The only known specimen is the holotype Q M F7882, which includes a near complete skull and a partial articulated skeleton, mainly missing the lower half of the limbs (Warren and Hutchinson 1983). Both Koolasuchus and Siderops belong to the family Chigutisauridae.
Now onto the figure itself. For starters, the figure is about 21.4cm/8.4 inches long, and the head is about 5.08cm/2 inches at its widest. The length of Koolasuchus skull (from the midline) is estimated to be about 65cm/25.6 inches (Steyer and Damiani, 2005), and combined with the length of the figure’s head at about 6.35cm/2.5 inches, which would put this figure around 1:10 scale give or take. The figure is overall a dark green coloration, with a cream or pale yellow for the belly. Though there is also dark brown coloration from the backside down to the tail fin, with some light green spots on the back as well. The mouth is mostly pink, with a dark wash in the texturing on the tongue and the roof of the mouth. The eyes are jet black, and the digits were all painted brown at their tips.
The texture of the skull on the figure bares resemblance to that of the many temnospondyl skulls out there, although this pitted and grooved texture is also found present on other non-temnospondyl animals as well. Rather it was exposed or covered under skin is a matter of debate. There are a number of different hypothesis about what the pits and grooves would have been used for, such as supporting blood vessels to expel carbon dioxide, or how the skin adheres to the skull. The paper describing Siderops suggests the skull had sensory canals, or sulci as well, something Koolasuchus likely also had.
Moving onto the body’s integument, it is covered in fine scales. This was a subject of debate when the figure was first revealed. Without more material from Koolasuchus, or other chigutisaurids, it’s hard to say exactly if the scales are the correct depiction for this animal, or if smooth skin like seen on many extant amphibians was more likely. In any case it gives the figure a nice texture. Different types of scales, and even osteoderms are known from a large number of temnospondyls across the group however, including Broomistega putterilli (Fernandez, et al, 2013), Eryops megacephalus (Romer and Witter, 1941), Gerrothorax pulcherrimus (“G. rhaeticus” Nilsson, 1946), Laidleria gracilis (Warren, 2008), Melanerpeton tenerum (Werneburg, 2007; additionally preserves some type of color pattern), Peltobatrachus pustulatus (Panchen, 1959), Sclerocephalus haeuseri (Schoch and Witzmann, 2008; additionally Witzmann, 2007) and numerous others.
In addition to those examples, the recently described Arenaerpeton supinatus (Hart, et al, 2023), a chigutisaurid like Koolasuchus, preserves a soft tissue outline from the belly side up. The outline is at its widest at the abdomen, likely a result of the carcass undergoing some “bloat-and-float” like other aquatic animals, as the paper suggests, but other aspects (such as around the arms) may be able to be inferred for its relatives going forward. The fossil’s soft tissue is described in the paper as being “coarsely textured”, and that it lacked dermal ossifications. This might be the closest idea we can get for Koolasuchus skin, without more evidence. In any case, I think what CollectA gave it is a safe interpretation.
The figure has a webbed tail of sorts, similar to that of the extant critically endangered Axolotl. Without systematically researching each and every described species of temnospondyl (and trust me I tried numerous times, with each resulting in a burn out), there’s no way to say if the inspiration came from any particular specimen. What I have come across is some neotenic dissorophoideans depicted in this way (like the above mentioned Melanerpeton tenerum), but even then I’m not sure whether there is evidence among them for such a feature, or if it remains purely speculative, pulled from extant amphibians like the Axolotl. A plethora of paleoart also depicts temnospondyls with such a feature (though not all the time). If any one knows of any particular temnospondyls with this type of tail morphology, please let me know in the comments below.
Anyways, if you like prehistoric amphibians, I definitely recommend picking this one up. The market could certainly use more prehistoric amphibians, now that the rest outside of this figure are long retired. Hopefully this figure is successful in selling. I’d love to see CollectA do more prehistoric amphibians (if not earlier tetrapodomorphs like Tiktaalik), temnospondyls or otherwise, in the future.
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