Pelagic Fish

[brontodocus]

Walk-around of the new Safari Ltd Wild Safari Sealife Sunfish, Mola mola (Linnaeus, 1758). Before this greatly anticipated (at least by me) new addition to the WS Sealife series there were apparently only a few Japanese companies (Kaiyodo, Furuta, and Colorata) that made figures representing this remarkable fish, probably the heaviest extant bony fish in the world. Since it's a poor swimmer and is more transported by drifting in water currents than by active swimming it would technically qualifiy to be regarded as a planctonic organism if you wish so. Total length is 80 mm and height from tip of dorsal fin to tip of anal fin is 100 mm, so the scale would be approx. 1:23 - 42. The human figures are approx. 1:32 (diver from Safari Ltd. Coral Reef Toob) and 1:41 - 1:46 scale ("Grandpa" by Tristan Bethe available through shapeways). The stand is sold separately and I would say it is not just an optional item but rather something the figure should not go without. While I greatly appreciate that Safari Ltd made a fully removable stand I think it would have been better if both were sold as a set rather than as two individually selling units, people might pass on the stand and regret getting it later since the sunfish definitely doesn't look half as good when it's laid flat on a shelf. Here is a link to the Sunfish and its stand at Safari Ltd's website: http://safariltd.shptron.com/p/sunfish http://safariltd.shptron.com/p/sunfish-stand










Edit 2017-02-07: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

amazing figure, I like it, thanks for sharing again  .

[Ana]

Very nice! And I like the info too However I think, the base is optional because kids like playing by figures and not all of them display their toys on shelf, so it can basically lay in toy basket between one playtime and another.

[animaltoyforum]

The sunfish is such a weird creature! We have one on display in our museum

[brontodocus]

Thanks, Jetoar, Ana, and Adam!

Very nice! And I like the info too However I think, the base is optional because kids like playing by figures and not all of them display their toys on shelf, so it can basically lay in toy basket between one playtime and another.

Okay, thinking of it - as a toy for kids that would probably be stored in a box together with other toys the stand is probably not neccessary. But for collectors who want to display the sunfish in a shelf I'd say it's mandatory to get the stand, too.

The sunfish is such a weird creature! We have one on display in our museum

I remember having seen a photo of it! Sigh, nearly ten years ago I missed the opportunity to see one in the wild when I collected the samples for my PhD thesis off Galicia. Sampling took ten days or so and the research vessel always returned after one day and so we could choose if we go aboard or stay in the laboratory to sort our samples. The sunfish was of course seen when I was in the laboratory... I've been told it was a small one, less than a metre long, but still I was quite envious. I did see Pilot Whales, Globicephala melas, though, which were inquisitively swimming around our research vessel once.

[KathyAnderson]

Cool, odd animal is the sunfish. Great review and i love the pictures!

[brontodocus]

WS Sealife Sunfish & stand phtos are visible again.