Dinosaurs to Watch Out For This Holiday Season

Parents buying toys for their children this holiday season might want to be wary of a few dangerous dinosaurs.

Last week the 24th annual "Trouble in Toyland" advisory was released, and among the potentially dangerous toys listed were at least two dinosaurs. One, "Stompers" the Triceratops by Playskool, is so loud that it has raised worries that it might cause hearing damage (to say nothing of how it might affect the sanity of everyone else in the house who hears it repeatedly roar). The makers of the toy deny the charge, however, citing that it meets all safe sound requirements.

The other prehistoric offender was the cloth book Big Rex and Friends. According to the report, a red dot on one of the book's pages contains lead.

While parents have always been a bit worried about toy safety during the holidays ("You'll shoot your eye out.") worries over shoddy production and lead paint in toys has made parents even more concerned in recent years. Resources such as the Toy Safety website can help parents avoid these worries, but since the science fiction of Jurassic Park has not become a reality at least parents don't have to worry about their little ones begging for a real Tyrannosaurus for Christmas.

Riley Black | | READ MORE

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.