The major force behind the variety of life is the evolutionary arms race between predator and prey. Predators evolve to catch and kill, it’s prey to run or fight back. One of the major groups to have evolved a mix of these ways of prey surviving are antelopes, as they can run quickly, they have horns to fight back. We see this in the Noah’s Pals set of impala (Aepyceros melampus), being categorized in the “Vulnerable” subset of Noah’s Pals.
This may surprise some, as the type subspecies is usually known as the “common impala”, there is another subspecies that is classified as vulnerable, the black-faced impala (Aepyceros melampus petersi). However, these figures do not feature the black stripping on the face that should be there, meaning these do represent the common impala, which is not vulnerable.
Let us talk about the figures themselves. We’ll start with the male, Ian. He measures 2.3″ long and 2.5″ high, fitting with the line’s 1:24 scale, but is still quite small. The colour scheme works brilliantly, matching the colour pattern of the real animal perfectly, though the pose is quite stoic, just standing there. Not bad, but could be better.
Ilona works well as the female of the set, showing the clear sexual dimorphism that impalas have, along with a lot of other antelope, in being smaller and lacking horns. Although the figure shows the same stoic pose as Ian. She measures 2.3″ long and 1.9″ high and features an accurate colour scheme based on the real animal. Small but good, nice to see more females in toy lines, and the showing of the sexual dimorphism is great.
This is a nice set, small but well made. The major problem is getting this set. Not only is Noah’s Pals long discontinued, these are part of the Vulnerable line, meaning only 20,000 sets were made, meaning they are rarer and likely to be pricier when you do find it. eBay is likely your best bet, but don’t overspend to get it. It’s worth getting, but not if you have to spend too much on it.
I was debating on whether to give this 4 or 5 stars. They are nice, but it is surprising we do not have, at least readily available, a really good standard-sized impala figure. I have the one by Papo, which is slightly better than these, but not great. The best is probably the one by Kitan Club (re-released by Ikimon) for the African Savanna set, but being a gashapon figure, it is tiny!
I know what you mean. These aren’t that big either, so could do with a major company making one. Maybe CollectA will do it at some point.