Ah, Nanotyrannus. It has perhaps been the most divisive dinosaur of them all, the one most likely to spark intense discussion, heated arguments, and outright vitriol among members of the paleontology community. It’s been doing so for decades now, with one side contending that it is its own beast, its own pygmy tyrant, its own valid taxon, and the other side countering that it is simply a young Tyrannosaurus rex.
Back in 2022, Safari Ltd. released a toy called Nanotyrannus to tie in with the 2020 Dino Dana film, which can currently be viewed here on YouTube. Spoiler alert: if you fast-forward to 1:12:49 (that’s what I did), you’ll see that the animal turns out to be a T. rex juvenile. The toy is sculpted in a walking pose with its head raised and the mouth open. The arms are dangling downward as usual. The left leg is stepping forward while the right one is extended back and the tail is swaying slightly to the right. It measures 19.5 cm long and stands 7 cm tall. Stands very well on its own too.
The main colour here is medium brown with light brown for the underbelly and the soles of the feet and very dark grey claws. Small white spots adorn the back of the neck and large white stripes run down the torso and tail. The head features light orange eyes, black nostrils, pink mucosal lining, off white teeth, and, unusually, dark purple for the inside of the mouth. That’s a cool touch.
Overall, it’s pretty close to what’s shown in the movie, except the stripes are not as elaborate. And while it is a plausible colour scheme, it’s admittedly a bit bland compared to other Safari tyrannosaurs.
The skin texture consists of small rounded scales all over. Thick wrinkles are visible on the neck and flanks and there are rows of scutes covering the hands and feet. There are also round osteoderms on the torso, legs, and tail, which is a bit unusual for a tyrannosaur nowadays.
The claws and teeth are fairly pointy like on most Safari theropods and the inside of the mouth is detailed, although it can be hard to make out due to the dark purple. The top of the snout, the premaxilla, and the maxillas are covered in hummocks and there are small, rather flat postorbitals around the eyes. No lips and no feathers, just like in the movie. Although strangely, both the hatchling and adult T. rexes in the same movie have quite a lot of feathers on them. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense, does it? Or was the “Nano” supposed to be suffering from an abnormally extreme case of moulting?
This toy is said to have been based on the famous “Jane” specimen, which many paleontologists have long considered to be a juvenile T. rex. In comparing this toy to the skeletal restoration, we can see that the head does indeed bear a very strong likeness, with a long and relatively narrow snout. However, the very muscular legs and tail do not appear to be quite long and lanky enough. As a result, this toy looks significantly stockier and less graceful than Jane.
And that brings us to the looming question: should this toy really be considered a Nanotyrannus, or should it be considered a juvenile king tyrant? As I mentioned at the very beginning, the debate has been going on for a very long time now, with a great many arguments for and against the validity of the pygmy tyrant. And to be perfectly honest, which I always am, I really don’t feel like summarising them all here. Instead, I would strongly recommend purchasing a copy of paleontologist/paleoartist Mark Witton’s 2025 book King Tyrant: A Natural History of Tyrannosaurus rex for an excellent discussion of the opposing arguments up until this year. Indeed, I strongly recommend purchasing it, period, as it’s a truly terrific tome on tyrants.
However . . . just this past week, a paper was published in Nature which describes NCSM 40000, nicknamed “Bloody Mary,” of the famous Duelling Dinosaurs specimen. And lo and behold, the authors have come to the conclusion that yes, Nanotyrannus is indeed for real. By performing a histological analysis of the limb bones, they found that Bloody Mary was around 20 years of age, and while it hadn’t quite stopped growing, there was simply no way it could have grown into a 12 metre long, 8-10+ ton dreadnought. More controversially, they argue that there were in fact two species of the pocket predator: N. lancensis and N. lethaeus, represented by Bloody Mary and Jane respectively. Other paleontologists have expressed skepticism about this, though. And, of course, the legitimacy of Nanotyrannus now throws much of what we thought we knew about T. rex‘s growth stages into doubt and disarray. Not to mention debunking the Dino Dana movie. Such is science!
Overall, I think that this is a decent toy. Its colour scheme is on the mundane side and its limb proportions are off, but it’s well-sculpted, it stands up fine, its pose makes for easy imaginative play, and it’s more accurate and much more affordable than the PNSO version. Plus it’s likely to become more of an in-demand item for tyrannosaur enthusiasts in light of the fact that Nanotyrannus has finally been shown to be the real deal. Welcome back, little tyrant, welcome back.
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