#522 DINO RIDERS - PTERODACTYL with LLAHD (1988)

The Pterodactyl is the smallest dinosaur in the first wave of Dino-Riders, it is slightly smaller than the Ankylosaurus, and not articulated, although both boxes were the same size. Maybe intentional, or not, is that the dinosaur comes with a figure that represents a child instead of a man, around one head shorter and with thinner extremities.

The flying sauria is made of the same plastic as other dinosaurs, but being so thin in the wingsm, neck, paws and so on, the plastic is a bit flexible. This flexibility is lost with the time if the dinosaur was conserved in harsh conditions of heat or light exposure. In many cases, the Pterodactyl is missing one of its paws or some of its legs. They were simply broken while playing, maybe many children thought the plastic was momre flexible than it actually was.

The harness is quite simple: it consists of a delta wing harness fit to the dinosaur with a peg that had to be inserted in the dinosaur´s belly. The peg is also fragile and could be broken in used toys. But even more fragile are the two tiny missiles that attach to the harness tubes and that, in some cases are "stretched" and their handle do not fit any more the tubes very well, making the missiles somehow "loose".  In other cases, the missiles are simply lost. So easily lost and fragile, are quite difficult to find, maybe one of the most difficult parts to find in the entire first wave.

The harness do not attach very firmly to the dinosaur, maybe that´s why Tyco decided to include a smaller, lighter figure instead of the ordinary, big ones. Interesting, however is that the two handles to fit the figure to the handle bar are designed to be used by a big figure.

There is a variant of this toy in which the figure included is not the child-Llahd, but an adult-Llahd, a figure with a different cast, but similar colours. The adult-Llahd version is considered to be rarer than the child-Llahd version. I have both, os you can compare both in the next pictures.

We have unintendedly used the word dinosaur for the Pterodactyl, but technically it is no dinosaur, but a flying sauria. I always like to make this clear when I write about "dinosaurs" that are not "real dinosaurs".

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: PTERODACTYL with LLADH
• Toy Line: Dino Riders (Wave 1)
• Year: 1988
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Scale of the dinosaur: 1:24
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm