Chrysochroa fulgidissima is a colorful metallic wood-boring beetle (family Buprestidae) from Japan. It goes by Yamato tamamushi in Japanese which roughly translates to ‘jewel beetle’. Historically, it was believed to be more widespread in Southeast Asia, but populations from Korea, China, and Vietnam have been described as new species. Elytra of the beetle have been used to decorate shrines, wood furniture, and bronze plaques. The beetle occurs in hardwood forests where the larvae burrow into Celtis (hackberry), Zelkova, Diospyros, Prunus (stone fruits), Morus (mulberry), and Quercus (oak). The species has been made four times in toy/figure form (to my knowledge), with today’s by Model Innovative Creation (MIC) being the most recent. Despite having so few representatives in toy form, this isn’t even the first time we have seen it on the Blog; the first honor goes to Beetle Guy who reviewed the Yujin model back in 2019. The Puripura line by MIC features various figures (not just animals) that must be assembled like model kits. This figure showed up recently on the forums as ‘New for 2022’ but the packaging indicated it was produced in 2020.
The kit comes in eight pieces: dorsal body, ventral body, and six legs. The pieces come painted and snap together without adhesive. The pieces snap easily and snuggly, and there is no articulation in the final product. The figure has a body length of 4.3 cm, which puts it into the 1:1 range for a large specimen (or slightly over 1:1, with the species having an average range of 3.0-4.1 cm). The paint job is spectacular and captured the metallic rainbow colors of the insect. The images here do not do it justice (I found it rather challenging to capture the brightness and metallic shine easily in the images). The pronotum is appropriately textured, better than other examples of this species.
Because of the assembly, this figure might not be for everyone (even though the it is very easy to assemble). However, it is probably easier to find than those by Yujin and F-toys (below), at least at the time of this writing, and is certainly cheaper. Buprestids in general are not common as toys, so if one wanted this species in their collection, this is one to seriously consider. I bought mine through a Japanese online shop with Brett’s assistance, for roughly $12 USD.
A trio of nice C. fulgidissima figures, all in the 1:1 scale range, clockwise from top: Yujin, MIC, F-toys:
