Gharial (Wild Animals by Papo)

4.3 (6 votes)

I have a keen love of crocodilians. They are fascinating, from their looks to their anatomy, and look very prehistoric. While many seem fairly similar, their are some interesting variants with this, such as this one: the gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), a fish eating crocodilian from India and China. It specialises in fish eating, with teeth that interlock to prevent fish escaping. Sadly, these beautiful reptiles are in decline due to over fishing and habitat loss. Here we look at Papo’s example of these great reptiles.

As with many decent toy lines, the accuracy is bang on, as it should be, and moulded to a great quality. The colours are spot on too, with a greyish-green colour. The pose is fairly common among crocodilians, depicting it in a sprawl, which is workable.

This is a decently sized figure, measuring 8.1″ long and high 1.4″ high, meaning it might not fit too many figure lines, as gharials reach 9′ 10″ long, so would need to be with other large figures from it’s region (scale comes to about 1:16 for a female or 1:21 for a male, on average).

I adore this figure, ever since I bought it from Crocodiles of the World, a crocodile zoo in the U.K. (which I highly recommend for their conservation work). It was made in 2013, so it may be easier to find online then in shops now. But if you find it, it’s well worth getting. I highly recommend it.

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Comments 6

  • Thank you for contributing to the ATB. I have this figure in my Synoptic Collection and love it!

    • You’re most welcome, glad to be of service. Think I may have to alter my format though, doesn’t works as well when there is little speculative work, I feel.

      • I think your format is fine; each post should reflect the reviewer, not a ‘blog standard’. These are glorified walkarounds, so you can be as wordy and detailed, or as brief, as you wish 🙂

  • Nice job. Sure wish there were more gharial toys available.

  • Oh I totally missed this review, was just preparing some photos myself of this nice figure after diggin`it out of the garage`s depth and having its warped snout lengthened again. Nice review. Would really have been nice to have more gharial figures to go along with that one, especially young ones (Schleich did that with their last croc and alligator). I think the figure represents a female by the way, a grown male should have a somewhat ugly bulge on its snout – but the girls like it they say.

  • a nice figure. I would have preferred if the underside was painted a little more as you can barely see the contrast between the upper side olive colour and what is supposed to be a cream coloured belly.

    I agree that it’s supposed to be a female, although the bulge on her nose is a bit too pronounced; sort of looks like a cross between a male and female.

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