The Dinosaur Fan is a dinosaur card collector’s encyclopedia

Collectibles by Life Form

"I collect these objects to learn from them. In some moment these things are going to teach me something. For me, this is like a library. These are my books."

Jose Bedia in ARTNews, Summer 2000

This section of The Dinosaur Fan presents sets grouped by the names (genera) of the life forms depicted on the items contained in the sets. For obvious reasons, sets that do not have any life forms identified will not be found in this section of the site.

Current Collectibles Record Totals

Total Sets
3,546

Total Items
148,853

Total Images*
94,116

*Image total includes the fronts, backs, and third images of collectibles as applicable (e.g., album pages, inside of foldouts, figurines)

Extinct Life

This group includes collectibles of life forms that, to the best of our knowledge, do not have any living representatives (i.e., the genera and associated species) on the planet Earth. Common examples of these are the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and megafauna (e.g., mammoths, saber-toothed tiger). This group contains most of the identified collectibles because of the topic of this website and is an important component of the in-progress “ Visual Journey of All That Is ” presented in this website.

Total Extinct Life Items
34,037

Top 10 Quantity of Sets by Extinct Life Form
	Life Form	Qty. of Sets *
	Tyrannosaurus	1,354
	Triceratops	1,160
	Stegosaurus	1,105
	Pteranodon	661
	Velociraptor	520
	Brachiosaurus	512
	Allosaurus	483
	Parasaurolophus	467
	Iguanodon	462
	Ankylosaurus	454

Top 10 Quantity of Items by Extinct Life Form
	Life Form	Qty. of Items *
	Tyrannosaurus	2,260
	Triceratops	1,624
	Stegosaurus	1,481
	Velociraptor	1,068
	Pteranodon	897
	Brachiosaurus	685
	Allosaurus	634
	Apatosaurus	597
	Parasaurolophus	597
	Iguanodon	591

Living Organisms

This group includes collectibles of life forms (i.e., genera) that have at least one living species on the planet Earth. Basically, that’s every existent form of life from bacteria to plants, from reptiles to fish, from birds to mammals, and everything in between. This group is far too expansive to cover in this site which of course is devoted to extinct life forms. While not a lot of effort has been made to identify living creatures that are depicted on some collectibles in this site, this group is an important component of the in-progress “ Visual Journey of All That Is ” presented in this website.

Total Living Organism Items
265

Top 10 Quantity of Sets by Existent Life Form
	Life Form	Qty. of Sets *
	Homo	35
	Bison	29
	Ursus	25
	Bos	16
	Panthera	13
	Equus	11
	Elephas	5
	Rhinoceros	5
	Varanus	4
	Alligator	3
	Hippopotamus	3
	Rangifer	3

Top 10 Quantity of Items by Existent Life Form
	Life Form	Qty. of Items *
	Homo	55
	Ursus	37
	Bison	35
	Bos	18
	Equus	13
	Panthera	13
	Elephas	6
	Rhinoceros	5
	Varanus	4
	Alligator	3

Imaginary Creatures

This group includes collectibles depicting creatures and/or characters modeled after extinct, legendary, and/or cryptozoological animals. It should be noted that creatures with legitimate names (i.e., genera) contained in imaginary/fantasy/pop culture-based sets are NOT included in this group. These creatures are, to one degree or another, a "representation" of real extinct animals and will be included in that group.

A good example of this differentiation is found with the Disney movie, ‘Dinosaur’. While all the characters in the move are based on real animals (e.g., iguanodonts, brachiosaurs), I classify the talking characters (e.g., Aladar, Kron, Neera) as fictional life whereas the two legitimately named dinosaurs in this movie (i.e., Carnotaurus and Velociraptor) will be included with the extinct life group. Another example is the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park/World movies. All of these will be found in the extinct life group of this site with the exception of two fictitious creatures, the Indominus rex and the Indoraptor.

I have tried to include a variety of imaginary creatures that in some way resemble extinct creatures such as dinosaurs. This group is a small but interesting component of the in-progress “ Visual Journey of All That Is ” presented in this website.

As a side note, I’ve attempted to associate these imaginary/fantasy/pop culture-based creatures with possible extinct life form inspirations. A goofy example is Barney the Dinosaur which I have associated with the Tyrannosaurus. There really is no reason to do this except I thought it would be fun and interesting. I have not made any attempt to be "scientific" about this information. Most of the data was gathered from the internet with a minimal amount of validation on my part. In those cases where I could not find potential extinct life form inspirations published on the internet, I took the liberty of guessing based on images from my extinct life collection.

In a vain attempt to convince the reader that I have not totally lost my mind, below is a summary of the findings of a 1998 science-based, tongue-in-cheek analysis of Godzilla by the renowned paleontologist Ken Carpenter which, if nothing else, proves that I am not the only one who occasionally muses on such obscure trivialities.

“Godzilla has traits that evolved multiple times among different groups of large carnivorous theropods, creating a strange dinosaurian mosaic. Not to mention all those radiation-spurred mutations.

Still, the monster’s anatomy holds enough clues to place him within a particular part of the dinosaur family tree. Godzilla’s long arms and four fingers on each hand indicate that the “Big Guy” is a basal theropod, or, in other words, belongs to one of the early branches of the group’s family tree. And even though the bony fins along Godzilla’s back are reminiscent of the herbivore Stegosaurus, Carpenter pointed out that some theropods–such as Ceratosaurus–had less-flashy bony armor along their spines. Perhaps the prominent ornaments on Godzilla were highly-modified versions of body armor that was more subtle among his ancestors.

More than anything else, though, Carpenter pointed to Godzilla’s head as the key to the mutant dinosaur’s identity. Godzilla has a short, deep skull reminiscent of a group of theropods called abelisaurids–dinosaurs such as Carnotaurus and Skorpiovenator that were cousins of Ceratosaurus. (In fact, the abelisaurids were a subgroup within the Ceratosauria.) Combined with the finger count and osteoderms, Carpenter noted, the creature’s skull suggests that Godzilla is some sort of ceratosaur–perhaps even a form that smooths the transition between more archaic ceratosaurs and the deep-skulled abelisaurids. Exactly how such a strange dinosaur survived to the modern era, and how radioactivity created such a monstrosity, are questions best left in movie mythology.” (Source: Smithsonian.com, What Kind of Dinosaur is Godzilla?)

Total Imaginary Creature Items
2,648

Top 10 Quantity of Sets by Imaginary Creatures
	Life Form	Qty. of Sets *
	King Kong	43
	Dino	40
	Aladar	39
	Devil Dinosaur	31
	Bigfoot	26
	Indominus Rex	23
	Baylene	21
	Godzilla	21
	Neera	21
	Kron	20
	Rex (Toy Story)	20

Top 10 Quantity of Items by Imaginary Creatures
	Life Form	Qty. of Items *
	King Kong	336
	Godzilla	164
	Aladar	138
	Dino	118
	Yazoo	100
	Baby Sinclair	89
	Bigfoot	68
	Earl Sneed Sinclair	68
	Denver	61
	Indominus Rex	59

Inanimate Elements

This group incorporates collectibles of natural non-living substances including rocks, minerals, meteorites, fossil eggs, and trace fossils such as footprints. While not a lot of effort has been made to identify inanimate solids that are depicted on some collectibles in this site, this group is an important component of the in-progress “ Visual Journey of All That Is ” presented in this website.

Food for thought regarding "on-living substances":

"Finally, they came to the granite. 'This is alive,' Leavitt said. 'It is living, breathing, walking, and talking. Only we cannot see it, because it is happening too slowly. Rock has a lifespan of three billion years. We have a lifespan of sixty or seventy years. We cannot see what is happening to this rock for the same reason that we cannot make out the tune on a record being played at the rate of one revolution every century. And the rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.'” (Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain)

Total Inanimate Items
2

Top 10 Quantity of Sets by Inanimate Elements
	Life Form	Qty. of Sets *
	Amber	1
	Anomoepus	1

Top 10 Quantity of Items by Inanimate Elements
	Life Form	Qty. of Items *
	Amber	1
	Anomoepus	1

Ethereal Entities

This group incorporates collectibles of entities or beings that are, or were, believed to exist which cannot be explained by the laws of nature including faith-based beings (e.g., Jesus, Buddha, satan, angels) and mythology-based beings (Zeus, Poseidon, Aphrodite). While not much effort has been made to identify ethereal entities that are depicted on some collectibles in this site, this group is included as part of the in-progress “ Visual Journey of All That Is ” presented in this website.