Dingo (Southlands Replicas)

Review and photos by Suspsy, edited by bmathison1972

While the dingo (Canis lupus dingo) rarely exceeds 35 lbs in weight, making it smaller than a coyote and much smaller than a grey wolf, it is nevertheless Australia’s largest land predator, and one of the most dangerous. Fast, agile, and hardy, dingos often live and hunt in packs consisting of a mated pair and their offspring. As a pack, they are fully capable of bringing down prey as large as horses, water buffaloes, and red kangaroos. They are also responsible for a number of attacks on humans, some of them fatal.

Behold the Southlands Replicas dingo. It stands a little under 5 cm tall and measures nearly 8.5 cm in length, making the figure just under 1:12 in scale, on average. Main colours are tan and white with black for the eyes, muzzle, mouth, and paws. There’s also whites in the eyes and a bit of pink on the insides of the ears and at the groin. On that note, this individual is clearly a male.

Our dingo is posed with his left front paw is raised and his head is turned sharply to the left with his ears perked, as though he is in the middle of hunting for prey. Part of the reason for the dingo’s success is its wide diet: it eats insects, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and fish in addition to mammals. Its favourite prey, however, appears to be kangaroos. Dingo packs hunt in a manner similar to wolves and African hunting dogs, with pack members taking turns pursuing a kangaroo in a deadly relay race. Once the kangaroo is sufficiently exhausted, the pack bites at its hind legs, then its neck. Lone dingos will also sometimes attempt to take on kangaroos, but the outcome can be very different!

Much of the fur covering the dingo’s torso is only lightly sculpted, but that’s understandable given that real ones have relatively thin coats. The head, neck, haunches, and tail do feature thicker fur, though. The proportions appear to be quite accurate. The animal’s build is lithe and athletic, with the head being wider than the body. The limbs and shoulders are well-muscled, giving the overall impression of an animal that is accustomed to hard living, but presently doing alright for itself. The hind limbs on mine are somewhat warped out to the sides, but hopefully this is not a common issue.

All in all, I think that Southlands Replicas has produced a very fine rendition of the scrappy dingo. As with their red kangaroo, it would be neat if they made a female version and even a pup in the future.