Kids love dinosaurs. Kids love giant transforming robots that merge into one super warrior. You see where I'm going with this, don't know?

Observe the Transformer pictured over to the right. Click on him for a larger view. I lifted this scan from the Transformers: Generations book, the same page that had that unmade Rodimus Prime. This one right here is a rather awesome prototype sketch for a another character (or characters, really) that was never made. He's obviously a "Scramble City"-style combiner made of five robots that transform into dinosaurs and then combine into a gestalt. But neither the individual robots, nor their combined form, nor the team as a whole have any names, tech specs or colors attached to them.

And it's really bothering me. It's a goddamn crime. Because for all the fanboys out there who dreamed of the Dinobots combining into a gestalt, this would have satiated that urge. (Personally, I like that the original Dinobots don't combine.) And yes, I know, in Japan they had the Dinoforce that formed Dinoking, but they weren't actually dino-robots, just recolored Monstercons in silly Pretender dino-shells. These guys right here, though... The detail on the drawing is so precise, you see how each appendage would transform into both its dinosaur and robot modes. So close, yet so far. I wanna see some o' that mongo-dino-gestalt action!

Well, at least this gives us a great opportunity to learn some new things about dinosaurs! (Dinosaurs are awesome. If you have not yet accepted this, do so now.) After perusing the boxes, instructions and tech specs for the original Dinobots, it seems that they never explicitly name the type of dinosaur each one is; rather they simply refer to their "dinosaur mode". This is probably wise: after all, back in 1985, the Dinobot Sludge would have probably still been called a brontosaurus, whereas the amateur paleontologists among us know that "brontosaurus" was a sloppy misidentification. Sludge is certainly a sauropod, but we could argue forever which one (in the end, probably an apatosaurus).

Anyway, let's move on to the dinosaur gestalt at hand. Let's see, the left leg is almost certainly an ankylosaurus (ang-KI-lo-SAWR-us), or at least some member of the family of ankylosaurs, of which ankylosaurus is obviously the archetypical member. Though there are some other really cool ankylosaurs like gastonia and polacanthus, I cannot imagine the Hasbro guys would have claimed this guy was anything other than a standard ankylosaurus.

The right leg is obviously meant to be a styracosaurus (sty-RACK-oh-SAWR-us), the second-most popular member of the ceratopsian family (with triceratops being the standard-bearer for the line). I always loved styracosaurus as a kid; he was like the lesser-known but even spikier brother to ol' three-horn. Knowing about styracosaurus is also a good test of whether your friends "kinda like" dinosaurs or "really like" dinosaurs. Yes, you can use that.

The left arm is undoubtedly dimetrodon (die-MET-roh-don), though I should point out that dimetrodons are not actually dinosaurs, but are pelycosaurs, a mammal-like and reptile-like ancestor of mammals that lived before the time of the dinosaurs. Yeah, betcha didn't know that. Obviously its most distinctive characteristic was the sail on its back, which was probably used to regulate body temperature, for display in mating or to ward off predators. When you think about it, it's a shame we don't all have sails on our backs. "Are you coming on to me?" "No, it's just balmy in here."

In any fictional team of animals or dinosaurs, you pretty are required to have an obligatory flying character. Thus the last appendage, the right arm, is some form of pterosaur (TARE-uh-soar), but from this angle there's really no way to get more specific than that. Fact: not all pterosaurs are pterodactyls. Rather, pterodactyls are a merely a sub-order or pterosaur. It's too bad we can't see the head, or we might be better able to take a guess as to its taxonomy.

Sadly, we really don't have any idea what type of dinosaur the main body character might have been intended to be. There just aren't any distinctive parts visible. Even so, I cannot imagine that they would release a group of dinosaur Transformers without either a sauropod or a tyrannosaur. What else could it have been? This gestalt's creator is obviously trying to avoid re-using any of the modes used for the Dinobots. I can't think of any other terribly prominent dinosaurs in the public consciousness. On the way outside chance, maybe it was an iguanodon (which would be neither sauropod or tyrannosaur, but rather an ornithipod, the family of duck-billed dinosaurs). Apparently, "Iguanodon was the first dinosaur recognized and the second dinosaur formally named and described." Huh! He's got my vote.

So there we have the best taxonomic breakdown I can give the guy. Part of me really, really wanted to name him and his constituents and give them all tech specs, but I felt that would be a little presumptuous of me. Still, for the purposes of discussion, let's at least give them a faction name. Let's see, let's see... think like Bob Budiansky... oh, I've got a good idea what they would have used.

Saurobots!

I bet you thought I was going to make them Decepticons. Eh, the G1 Con gestalts already outnumber the Bot gestalts by four — might as well bolster the ranks of the good guys. Anyway, if you have some other suggestions for names, feel free to reply and let loose.

Now if only some skilled Photoshop expert would come along and color this guy for us...