Too many to count! I’d estimate I have several thousand. I got started when I was a kid. Like many kids, I loved dinosaurs and I tried to learn everything I could about them. I enjoyed playing with dinosaur toys and reading dinosaur books. One Christmas, my parents gave me a red plastic bucket that was custom painted with dinosaur figures and my name in bubble letters. I started keeping all my dinosaur toys in the bucket, adding new toys to it whenever I got some. Eventually, I had so many that they wouldn’t fit in the bucket anymore. The collection just kept growing from there!

When I was a kid my favorite was Tyrannosaurus rex, but now I am fond of the long-necked sauropod dinosaurs. I am particularly fascinated with Apatosaurus because of its long and complicated history in scientific and popular culture: originally called Brontosaurus and reconstructed with the wrong head, an image of Apatosaurus is often what comes to mind when people hear the word ‘dinosaur’. I think it is interesting to see how images of Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus have changed over time as new scientific discoveries have changed the way we look at this enormous dinosaur.

Thanks! I suppose that makes me a dinosaur in the CQ community! I think that the evolution of dinosaur toys and collectibles over time illustrates a very important idea about paleontology and science in general: science is dynamic. New discoveries are constantly being made that force us to revise our ideas about the world; I think that my collection of dinosaurs is a fun way to illustrate this. I have always wanted to make my own website to show off my prehistoric collectibles, but every time I start one I never finish it. When I came across CQ I thought it would be a great way to share my collection with others.