Everybody who grew up in Cleveland, as I did, knows the Dunkleosteous. He’s the giant Devonian predator fish that is pretty much the official giant Devonian predators fish of the city. We all grew up visiting him at the Museum of Natural History on pretty much annual visits with school field trips, and some of us (smugly) still remember how to spell his name from writing papers. People who follow me on Instagram (@kekiongacomics) will tell you that my IG profile pic is an image of the Dunkleosteus reconstruction at the Nature Center in the Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. (For photographs and fun, see my previous blog post about my favorite Dunk.)
Or should I say my former favorite Dunk, because now I have a toy Dunkleosteus of my very own! Somehow, back in 2016, the Schleich company of Germany, well known for their awesome toy animals, released a Dunkleosteus figure with a moving jaw without my finding out about it. Imagine my surprise and delight when I went into the Rural King farm store in Decatur, Indiana and found him unexpectedly lurking among a wide assortment of Schleich farm and zoo animals. For bonus delight, this is how he rang up. Apparently Rural King knows how to spell “Dunkleosteus” too.
The other Fanta was an orange one.
For more Dunk science, yet another Dunk link: Dunkleosteous is in the Wikipedia here.
