It’s been twelve years now since the beginning of the Spinosaurus Renaissance, which radically transformed our understanding and appreciation of the famous spined lizard. First, we learned that it had relatively puny hind limbs and a long, narrow torso. Next, we found out that it had a paddle-shaped tail, further indicating that it may have spent most of its time in the water. And earlier this year, there was the announcement of a second species, S. mirabilis, smaller than S. aegyptiacus and with proportionally longer hind limbs and a tall, pointed crest on its forehead. A Spinocorn, if you will.
PNSO has done a good job of keeping up with these findings. Their original Spinosaurus featured the narrow torso and small hind limbs. Their next one, Essien, incorporated the paddle tail. And their latest one, released in 2023 and dubbed Ayman, is the very first new Spinosaurus toy to not be sculpted in a quadrupedal or swimming pose. Instead, he is standing tall on his hind legs, with his neck and head reared up in an S-shape, his arms dangling down, and his tail held off the ground and swaying to the right. My copy unfortunately has a slightly warped right foot, but it still manages to stand up on its own on certain surfaces. Naturally, I prefer to employ the included support rod to be safe.
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Ayman measures about 32 cm long and 14 cm tall. Due to his slender frame, he weighs in at just 235 g, significantly less than the 412 g Haolonggood Giganotosaurus and the 419 g PNSO Tyrannosaurus rex (Cameron II).
Ayman’s colour scheme is all about the browns. Light grey-brown for the base colour, very dark brown patterning from the back of the skull to the tip of the tail, dark brown hands and feet, with a little grey brown on the foreclaws, and some medium brown thrown in on the neck, torso, tail, and sail. The tiny osteoderms running down the back of the neck and the edges of the sail and the tail fin are beige. The head is light brown with a dark orange crest, medium orange eyes, glossy pink mouth, and light grey teeth. As is frequently the case with PNSO products, it’s not flashy, but it’s solid and plausible.
If this colour scheme sounds and looks familiar to you, it’s because Ayman has the exact same one as his predecessor Essien. And no, this isn’t due to laziness or a lack of imagination on PNSO’s part; it’s because Ayman is officially described in his accompanying information booklet as being Essien’s older brother. From a much earlier clutch of eggs, judging by the size difference between the two. I quite like the idea of brothers, and the two of them do look good together. Ayman’s sail has a classic rounded shape, while Essien’s is more angular with a pronounced dip in the middle, but those differences can easily be chalked up to individual variation. After all, we still don’t have enough Spinosaurus specimens to say for certain what the shape(s) the sails were.
And in comparing Ayman alongside Essien, it’s easy to see how much PNSO’s sculpting work improved in just a couple of years. All the detailing on the former is smaller, finer, and smoother to the touch.
Ayman’s head, which is covered in relatively large scales, is long and narrow, with the familiar bulge at the tip of the snout, the notch in the upper jaw, the long, conical, and very pointy teeth, and the short, wedge-shaped crest between the eyes. The inside of the mouth features a short tongue, a creased palate, and a cavernous throat. The lower jaw opens to around 40 degrees, enabling Ayman to grip small fish or shark toys, although doing so will offset his balance unless the support rod is firmly in place. Spinosaurus is estimated to have had an anterior bite force of 4829 N and a posterior bite force of 11,936 N, which are considerable, but significantly weaker than those of other megatheropods, and even certain smaller theropods like Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus. It appears to have specialised in quick snapping motions, which would be of great benefit for an animal that ate lots of fish.
Incidentally, a 2026 study concluded that Spinosaurus had salt glands located above its eyes, which would have allowed it to expel excess salt from its blood much like modern seabirds and reptiles such as sea turtles and marine iguanas. But even if the study had come out prior to this toy’s release, the glands would probably be far too small to discern at such a scale.
Ayman’s long neck and sausage-shaped torso are covered in minute scales, saggy wrinkles, and fine round osteoderms, with a single bumpy row running down the entire length of his spine. Larger scales are to be found on his sail, which has been carefully sculpted to show the signature neural spines beneath the skin. There are also large scales on his chest, shoulders, and arms. Said arms are big and chunky, and of course, terminate in very long, curved, and rather wicked-looking claws.
Now we come to Ayman’s hind legs. They are indeed rather small and thin, in keeping with the current science, but there is well-defined musculature on them. His feet end in straight, blunt claws, and are partially webbed. Such webbing was proposed all the way back in 2014, but I reckon it would be funny if a specimen turns up one day which shows that the feet were fully webbed like those of a duck or a goose or a swan. Oh, and the cloaca behind the hind legs is particularly well-detailed.
Lastly, there’s the wonderful tail. Accounting for roughly half of Ayman’s length, it represents the most recent restoration. The neural spines start out relatively short around the base, then gradually become taller before abruptly tapering off at the tip of the tail. It certainly does look like it was intended for swimming purposes. Whether Spinosaurus was an active pursuer of fish and other aquatic prey, or an ambush predator that stood in the shallows and waited for something to swim by close enough to snap it up is still a topic of debate, and it will probably go on for a long time yet. Although I for one definitely do not buy the idea that it was luring sharks with dead fish.
Ayman comes with an in-scale skull replica, 4.5 cm long and painted dark brown with light brown wash. Just like so many skeletal mounts you see in museums worldwide. No complete Spinosaurus skull has yet been found, so this is not based on any one particular specimen. It’s beautifully made, accurate to existing restorations, and a dead ringer for Ayman (if you’ll pardon the pun).
The bottom of Ayman’s box doubles as an enormous display stand measuring 40 cm x 17.5 cm x 11 cm. It’s entirely light grey with the PNSO logo printed in white on either side and basic stats on Spinosaurus printed on the top (mine has the Chinese language). While Ayman indubitably does look impressive and majestic standing atop it, I really have no desire nor space for such an item, so I discarded it.
Ayman also comes with a whole heap of posters, some of them measuring 42 cm x 30 cm and some measuring 30 cm x 21 cm. They range from the standard profile images to skeletal diagrams and to images of the Ayman toy. Granted, you can see that a number of the profile posters are reused from previous PNSO spinosaur releases, but the rest are completely original. In addition to Spinosaurus, the species include Baryonyx, Ichthyovenator, Irritator, Siamosaurus, “Sinopliosaurus,” and Suchomimus. Some of them have yet to be made into toys by PNSO; I’d certainly appreciate an Ichthyovenator from them!
There’s also a poster of Sarcosuchus (with an odd-looking skull) attacking Suchomimus. And one of Scheenstia, known to be among Baryonyx’s favourite fish dishes.
This last one is my favourite of the lot. Ayman looks very content and at home in the water.
And lastly, here’s the information booklet, choke full of images of Ayman and all his accessories, and a couple of original art pieces. Mine is printed in Chinese, but thankfully we are living in the age of Google Translate.
PNSO really outdid themselves with Ayman, for he is still currently the finest toy representation of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, hands down. I really cannot find any faults with the mould itself, save maybe for instability–and again, only because mine has a warped foot. Superb sculpting, impressive size and appearance, and about as accurate as we can get for the time being. Indeed, my only complaint is with Ayman’s price tag. As part of PNSO’s Museum Series, he is most assuredly not cheap (although I was very fortunate to find him for less than usual on AliExpress). And while the included skull is pretty neat, I can honestly and easily do without the cardboard base and the multitude of posters. Bottom line: if you’re a Spinosaurus fan, you really will adore Ayman.
All articles on the Dinosaur Toy Blog are written without the use of ‘AI’
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