Review and images by Suspsy; edited by bmathison1972
In 1977, the Japanese fishing trawler Zuiyō Maru hauled in a large, reeking, and badly decomposed carcass of what appeared to a plesiosaur, complete with flippers and a long neck. Concerned about spoiling their stock of fish, the crew dumped the remains back into the water after taking photographs and collecting tissue samples. While at first it seemed that a monumental scientific discovery had been lost, analysis later indicated that the mystery corpse was no prehistoric beast or cryptid. Instead, it was simply a basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus).
The basking shark is the second largest living fish and certainly one of the most bizarre-looking sharks thanks to its enormous mouth and gills. This 2007 figure does a fine job of showcasing those features, but not so much the size. Real basking sharks are usually around 7.9 metres 26 feet) in length, but at just 13.5 cm long and 5.5 cm wide at the pectoral fins, this is actually one of the smaller sharks in my son’s marine menagerie.
The main colour on this figure is a dark, slightest greenish shade of brown that fades to a very pale beige on the underbelly. The large eyes are black and the inside of the mouth is white with black for the gill slits.
The basking shark is sculpted in a feeding pose with its tail undulating to the right and its mouth open wide enough for an average adult to stick their fingertip inside with room to spare. The gills, which extend from the top of shark’s head all the way down to the underside, are fanned out to their fullest extent. Basking sharks feed primarily on zooplankton simply by swimming through the water at the surface, which is where they derive their name from.
Like seemingly all other shark figures, this basking shark is a female. Aside from the aforementioned gills and eyes, and the nostrils, her body is entirely smooth. All her fins appear to have the correct shape and proportions, but her tail is missing the large caudal keels that enable a basking shark to swim vast distances in search of food.
While it would have been nice if this figure was larger, its enormous mouth and gills make it stand out prominently among any any group of sharks. Add to the fact that it’s currently the only basking shark available on the market, and you have quite a desirable toy!
Nice review. The large eyes spoil the facial expression a bit, but certainly a very intersting figure and despite the quite harmless feeding strategy (if you are not one of those millions of small fish or inverts) the wide gape should make it a great toy.
I have this figure and I really really like it. I hadn’t realized the actual animal was so big. Most of my sharks are by Safari; it is a group they do very well.