High tide comes as a blessing for Shipwreck, who is in a very tight spot right now. Literally. In her temararious attempt to catch a much smaller mosasaur, she pursued it right into a small, shallow lagoon. Her prey then scooted back into open water just as the tide went out, leaving Shipwreck effectively trapped. For the past twelve hours, she has been languishing on the sandy bottom, regularly coming up for air, but otherwise unable to manoeuvre her formidable 14 metre form around the many large rocks and jagged coral reefs. And what few fish are stuck in the lagoon with her are far too small and quick to snap up, despite her off and on efforts. Her hunger is now greater than ever.
Finally, the water level becomes high enough again for Shipwreck to swim to freedom. And as luck would have it, she soon spots a lone ammonite hovering in the blue ahead of her. She knows from experience that it will not be as tasty or filling as that smaller mosasaur would have been, but it will suffice . . .
Slowly and steadily, CollectA has been releasing new and greatly improved versions of their older products. For 2026, it’s the mighty mosasaur known as Tylosaurus. I reviewed the original version here a decade ago, and while I do think that it had a certain charm to it, it definitely warranted replacing.
As part of the Age of Dinosaurs: Popular series, the new Tylosaurus is fairly small, just 20.5 cm long from the tip of her snout tip to the tip of her tail. I call her Shipwreck. She rests on her flippers with her belly off the ground, her tail swinging to the right, and her head turned to the left, jaws agape at a 30 degree angle.
Like many a proper marine predator, Shipwreck is dark on top and light on bottom. Her underbelly is coloured like beach sand, but her main colour is a dark shade of peacock blue, with thick stripes running down her flanks. Her eyes are yellow and her mouth is bright pink with beige teeth. She looks rather pleasant and realistic.
Shipwreck’s head is typically Tylosaurus: very long and shaped rather like a narrow triangle. The skin has a light scaly texture. The teeth lining the jaws are well-defined, well-painted, and reasonably pointy. The pterygoid teeth can be clearly seen on the palate, although due to the toy’s small size, they have not been painted. The forked tongue is also clearly visible, lying flat against the mandible.
The jaws are made of relatively flexible PVC, which means you can wedge in smaller creatures like the ones from CollectA’s prehistoric marine tube to make it look as though Shipwreck is crunching down on a tasty seafood meal.
There are no scale patterns on the rest of Shipwreck’s body, but she comes off as more streamlined that way. And she does have plenty of wrinkles, ranging from faint ones on her back to thicker, more pronounced ones on her throat and flippers. She also bears a couple of scars on her left side. Her large, vaguely teardrop-shaped flippers are a bit more fleshed out than on previous Tylosaurus toys; the digits cannot be discerned beneath the skin.
In keeping with the latest mosasaur science, Shipwreck’s powerful tail features a large, triangular fluke and a downward turned tip. Looks just like an inverted shark’s caudal fin, and distinctly different from that of the 2023 Deluxe Mosasaurus, or Black Bart as I call him. The tail also features faint wrinkles, and a sizable cleft on the back of the fluke.
Small though she may be, Shipwreck really is one of the best Tylosaurus toys yet. Easily the best one I’ve reviewed here. Solid sculpting, scientifically accurate, appropriate colours, and fun to play with. And again, it was definitely high time to replace the old version. This toy should be available for purchase from the usual vendors in just a matter of weeks. Hearty thanks to CollectA for the review sample!
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