Originally I was going to cover another bird in my next review but then it hit me, I haven’t reviewed a mammal since April with the Safari Great Lakes Toob, and I haven’t reviewed a standalone mammal figure since November 2019! So, to remedy that fact I decided it’s mammal time and that I would have to cover at least one before moving on to my more traditional subjects. Of course mammals aren’t hurting for coverage on the blog, they’re still the most reviewed animal group, but for me personally a mammal review is long overdue.
I’ve probably said it before but I’m not really a toy animal collector. I’ll pick one up here or there but my main hobby is collecting prehistoric animals. While collecting prehistoric animals it is inevitable that an extant animal will occasionally creep into your collection and such is the case here. I got this little armadillo in a shipment of toy dinosaurs off of eBay. Not having an extant animal shelf to display it I just placed it there on my prehistoric shelf, alongside plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, mammoths, and the related Glyptodon. It certainly looks prehistoric enough
Naturally if I wanted to write about this toy I had to learn about what it was. That it’s a giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) is clear enough but beyond that I was vexed. With some internet sleuthing I was able to determine that it is part of Safari’s Authentics line of now defunct miniature toy animals, a precursor to their Toob series. This one specifically comes from their rainforest set for which I don’t have any of the other figures.
The giant armadillo is a massive animal, and one that’s much larger than you might expect an armadillo to be. It’s the largest living armadillo, reaching 119 lbs (54 kg) but averaging about half that much, captive animals can apparently reach 180 lbs (80 kg). In length they can reach 30-39” (75-100cm) with the tail adding an additional 20” (50 cm). The figure is quite small, measuring 2.25” (57.15 mm) which puts it at roughly 1/22 scale.
The giant armadillo ranges over much of northern South America, south to northern Argentina. Despite being included in a set of rainforest animals the species prefers open woodland and grassland habitats. South America is not entirely rainforest, even if that’s what it is most famous for.
This figure is, frankly, rather crude and cartoony in appearance. It’s not bad for its age though, having been released sometime in the 1990’s and it holds up well compared to modern toob figures. The sculptor went a little heavy on the cross hatching, covering the entire body in them but it works alright. The toy only has 3 digits on the forelimbs when it should have five and it also fails to convey just how large the 3rd digit should be in relation to the others. The 3rd digit can grow to an absurd length of 8.7” (22 cm) and is used to dig in termite mounds and excavate burrows.
The toy’s body is painted a cream color with the armored back and top of the head gray. A brown band wraps around the armored back and brown speckling is present along the back and head. The claws are all painted as well.
The Safari giant armadillo is long retired but occasionally shows up on eBay or in lots like mine did. If your goal is to find the entire set that it goes with then you’ll be harder pressed. As of this writing this giant armadillo is the only one that I’m aware of that has been produced in plastic.
I would love to have a good figure of this species at an appropriate size. Furuta made one for their Chocoegg Funny Animatales series, but it’s too small (for me).