Raptors of east and west, of scale and feather

I don't see JW toys in stores here much if at all anymore, so I was surprised to spot this raptor. I don't have one with this sculpt yet, so it came home with me.

The packaging is Camp Cretaceous-themed, but I don't know whether the raptor itself is relevant to the show. I'm not complaining about getting some pretty box art without having to look at Owen's face on it, though.

In the box with the raptor was also this cute little sticker booklet.

The raptor's sculpt has a pretty natural-looking pose (for a JP/W raptor, of course, with pronated wrists and all), and the arms are a little poseable, too, and individually so, despite being part of the action feature. The paint job is tidy, without weirdly placed eyes, but I think the more recent figures from the Mattel JW line have been better about that anyway. There's nothing I absolutely need to customize for it to be presentable. I might still at least paint the remaining claws, and while I'm at it we'll see if I add any stripes and such (maybe something similar to Shredder on the left there in the first photo).
 

I'm not sure who this raptor is going to be in relation to the rest of the pack on my shelf, but my raptor AU does still have plenty of spots open for characters without a name or design. The raptor's base colour is a yellowy orange, but not very bright, and the stripes are brown. By JP raptor standards that's actually pretty androgynous, so I'm not entirely sure yet what gender I even consider this raptor to be. But I'm sure they'll fit in just fine.

Here are also a few more photos of the feathered raptor figures I got around Halloween last year.

Buitreraptor and juvenile Stenonychosaurus from the Beasts of the Mesozoic western pack.

The gorgeous box art depicts them together, but I assume that's more for showing off the dinos and not meant to imply they shared habitat - Buitreraptor is from the southern hemisphere and Stenonychosaurus from the northern, and that's clarified both elsewhere on the box and on the included collectible card. What they share is being deinonychosaurs (Stenonychosaurus being a troodontid and Buitreraptor a dromaeosaurid) from what today is the Americas.

Despite Stenonychosaurus/Troodon/Latenivenatrix being my favorite dinosaur(s), this is my first figure of such, and it's a very good representative. It's beautiful and very poseable for such a small figure, of course, because it's a BotM figure, so I'll try not to be surprised by that. :D But it is beautiful and very poseable.

I think the colouring is based on Crested caracara (Caracara plancus). The modern raptor acting as inspiration being an omnivorous scavenger and sometimes hunter of smaller prey does sound fitting for a troodontid, which are thought to have had similar feeding habits. Caracaras are highly opportunistic and adaptive, and in that subfamily, at least the Chimango caracara (Milvago chimango) has been found to be particularly good at problem solving. Stenonychosaurus had a notably large brain relative to its size, as is also mentioned on the box and card for the figure, so it's considered to have been a pretty smart birb, too. Maybe that played a part in picking the colour scheme.

The Buitreraptor refuses to be overshadowed by my problematic fave, by being my favorite colour! I'm pretty sure the inspiration is flamingos, and though not very camoflaging, it could suit an animal with a more flamingoesque lifestyle rather than an ambush predator hunting prey around its own size like an eudromaeosaur. Buitreraptor is an unenlagiine, which have been theorized to have been piscivorous, and the box art does depict it spreading its wings over water, which is a fishing technique used by herons. Buitreraptor's long and thin metatarsals would also have been well suited for running, though, so it could have been a pursuit predator hunting smaller animals.

I like the more purple colour inside the mouth, to contrast with the pinker pink of the plumage.

Flamingos' pink colour is caused by their diet, and their lack of camoflage is made up for by their having evolved to tolerate water that's toxic to their predators. Some birds also moult into a flashier nuptial plumage for courtship, and then back to a more camoflaged one once the charming looks have done their job. While flamingos don't do so by moulting, their pink colour does intensify for the breeding season due to the pigments also existing in their uropygial secretions, which they preen into their plumage more during breeding season. Maybe something similar to one or all of these causes is going on with this pink Buitreraptor, too.

 

Then to the Asian continent, starting with the big girl - the black BotM Velociraptor!

Not that Velociraptor was a particularly big dinosaur, but all the other featherfluffs featured here are even smaller.

I'll just say right off the bat that I couldn't get the posing rods attached to the base, which is a shame, but until I get around to potentially fixing that, she looks cute just sitting on the base, too, lol.

Otherwise, no complaints. I love her colouring, and it's surprisignly varied for a seemigly simple palette. I'm pretty sure the inspiration was the beauty that's Harris's hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus). If so, it works as a kind of nod to the animals called Velociraptors in Jurassic Park being pack hunters, despite Deinonychus, which is what JP raptors are based on, possibly not having been that after all, and the actual Velociraptor most likely also not having been that, as Harris's hawk actually does hunt in packs, if not quite like JP raptors do. Or it could just be a lovely-looking bird of prey whose natural habitat includes (semi-)desert.

Though the background image on the box depicts a desert in the daytime, Velociraptor is considered to have been nocturnal, based on the sclerotic rings of its skull. The beautiful art on the collectible card (and also on the box though with background cropped out) does depict the Velociraptor hunting at night.

Smallest but not the least, is the PNSO Microraptor. This is the older and smaller one.

Inspired by how well the glossy paint job captures the look of iridescence, I had fun taking a few photos in lighting that makes it look even more so, with the help of a couple of (white light and rainbow) fairylight chains.

Pretend it's capturing a small critter hiding among the leaves here.

Disco duck.