Haolonggood T. rex (brown). After some deliberation I purchased a Haolonggood T. rex. The delay was for two reasons. 1) The arms which appear vestigial (I believe T. rex arms were of some use), but moreover, the elbows range of movement would not have enabled the forearms to hang down – it wasn’t anatomically possible. 2) There is a considerable gap at the back of the mouth between the maxilla and surrangular when the mouth is closed. To remedy this, I simply display with sufficient gape to hide that fault. The dentition is in my opinion very good. I chose the brown because although in pictures the blue appears the more striking, I consider the brown the more realistic. The overall paint application is very well done, including that of the head ornamentation (lacrimal, preorbital, orbit and postorbital), the sculpt of which represents a mature individual. While the sculpt shows the barrel-shaped chest, this T. rex is relatively gracile in comparison to, for example, the PNSO Cameron T. rex. However, accounting for individual variation and/or possible sexual dimorphism, I consider it a welcome interpretation of the species. I have a few T. rex models, some to represent how the animal was once thought to look, while others to represent potential accuracy, and consider this, one of the best in terms of the latter. It’s definitely not perfect but still a very well worthwhile purchase. As for Everything Dinosaur, their customer service was as per usual, excellent. ED is the company I trust most when buying a dinosaur model.
