In the birdwatching hobby there exists something known as a “spark bird”, the species that sparked your interest in birds and got you into bird watching. Although I am a birder, I do not have a spark bird, but when it comes to the dinosaur toy hobby, I do have spark dinosaur figures: the feathered Carnegie Collection toys released in 2006. Although I wouldn’t start collecting dinosaurs for another 4 years these toys showed me just how far dinosaur toys had come since I was a child, and that companies like Safari Ltd. were keeping up with dinosaur science. One of these figures was a Caudipteryx, which I bought at the American Museum of Natural History in 2012 and was my 18th review for the blog. Fourteen years and 334 reviews later it is my great pleasure to be reviewing another Caudipteryx!
Sadly, although the 2006 Carnegie releases seemed to be setting a new precedent, companies have been reluctant to release feathered dinosaurs. They’re out there, sure, but not in the quantity you would expect them to be. And today’s leading companies, PNSO and Haolonggood, seem especially averse to producing them. This is especially odd when you consider that both companies are Chinese, PNSO enjoys producing Chinese taxa, and most feathered dinosaur fossils were found in China. But to the shock of collectors everywhere, PNSO announced a Caudipteryx figure in 2025, and we took notice. And since PNSO produced multiple ceratopsians, carcharodontosaurids, and marine reptiles in succession of each other a lot of us hoped they would do the same with feathered dinosaurs. They didn’t. This figure was a one-and-done deal but wow, what a figure it is!
I suspect that part of the reason these companies don’t produce small, feathered dinosaurs is because of the current trend in this hobby to only collect 1/35 scale figures. The benefit of this collecting strategy is obvious; it allows you to better visualize the size difference between the world’s largest dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. The problem is that a lot of dinosaurs, and arguably many of the most interesting one, are too small to realistically mass produce in 1/35 scale. I’m more interested in species diversity than scale, but I appear to be part of a growing minority of collectors and the market reflects this.
Amazon ad:
PNSO’s Caudipteryx stands 5.25” (13.34 cm) tall to the top of the head and measures 5” (12.7 cm) long. The actual Caudipteryx measured 28-35” (72.5–89 cm) long. Measuring from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail (not including tail feathers) gives us a length of 4.5” (11.53 cm) and using that we get a scale of 1/6-1/7. PNSO advertises the figure as being 1/6 in scale.
The figure beautifully illustrates the birdy and somewhat bizarre Caudipteryx body plan. The snout is small and beaked, the body is stoutly built, the tail is short, and the legs are long. The figure is gracefully striding forward with the wings slightly drooped and the head angled slightly upwards and to the right, as if in a confident strut. The figure comes with a support rod but the only place it really works is under the arm, like a crutch. Despite only the tips of two toes on the right foot touching the ground mine stands well without the crutch, but I will use it for security purposes.
Caudipteryx was a genus of oviraptorosaurian that lived in early Cretaceous China and its fossils have been found in the Yixian Formation, famous for other feathered dinosaurs such as Dilong, Sinornithosaurus, Yutyrannus, Beipiaosaurus, and Sinosauropteryx, as well as Psittacosaurus. Two species of Caudipteryx have been described, C. zoui (the type species) and C. dongi. The difference between the two species are minor and some consider them to just be variations of the same species.
The feather details include a covering of shaggy feathers over the entire body and contour feathers over the arms. The feathers loosely follow the outline of the body and appear densely layered. Compare this to the old Carnegie figure with its skin-tight feathers that make it appear awkward and gangly, from a time when artists were unsure of how to properly feather their dinosaurs. This is no lizard in a chicken costume, it looks as it should, like a bird.
The birdy appearance means that the feathers are also accurately applied. On the arms, primary feathers continue down the second digit, and the third digit is greatly reduced. Two fans of banded feathers are sculpted on the end of the short tail and there are 6 feathers on each side, which is accurate. The only bare skinned portions of the figure are the beak and feet. The feet are well padded on the underside but are otherwise thin with taught skin and tight tendons and detailed with scutes.
Junlang is painted deep blue and dark brown in color with black & white banded primary and tail feathers, similar to the primary feathers of a turkey. Most of the blue coloration is centralized along the flanks and arms and the brown is paler along the chest. The white bands transition to brown on the wings and the bases and tips of the tail feathers are brown, gradually transitioning to white in the middle. The edges of the wings are white, and the inside surface of the wings and tail feathers are white with a bit of a brown wash over them.
Junlang’s beak is bright blue and tipped in brown and the area around his eyes is pink. The eyes themselves are brown with black pupils and glossy. The feet are brown with gray toes and black claws, and the fingers are brown with black claws. There was some concern that the paintjob on the figure wouldn’t match the fantastic looking colors on the production image, but the figure is sufficiently similar to what was advertised.
As someone that’s getting kind of bored with the usual ceratopsians, predatory theropods, and gigantic sauropods, the PNSO Caudipteryx is a breath of fresh air and a good reminder of why I’m in this hobby to begin with. Nearly 30 years have passed since the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, and they’re still woefully underrepresented in this hobby. PNSO has released a few, mostly in their mini line, and Safari delivers phenomenal dromaeosaurs, but feathered dinosaur figures of this caliber are virtually non-existent. Hopefully this one-off from PNSO proves popular enough for the company to produce more like it. This is easily my favorite dinosaur figure of 2025 and if I wasn’t already a birder and saw this guy strut by, it would probably be my spark bird!
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