Mandrill, pair (Noah’s Pals by Caboodle! Toys LLC)

The primate order is an intriguing and diverse group, from monkeys to lemurs, and from great ape to human, they are varied in form. Here, we look at some old world monkeys, one that lacks the long tails and have only short ones. These are Mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx), primates that exist in both the forests and the Savanah of central-west Africa, living in large groups. They are sadly threatened by loss of habitat and the illegal bushmeat trade. It is therefore imperative their plight is shown, hence, I imagine, why they are in the “Vulnerable” section of the Noah’s Pals line. Let’s look closer!

We start with the male Mandrill Michael (try saying that six times!). We see a fairly chill quadrupedal stance, sniffing around. Not bad. The colouration is a little over simple here, the brown fur and face is good (face is actually fabulous) but one issue stands: the lack of a bright bottom! It is well known that drills have bright bums to display with, but they don’t here. Odd, but there you are. The fur detailing is good though. As a 1:24 scale model, it is small, measuring 1.4″ long and 1″ high. Not bad.

And now to Marie, the female. She is a tad more active, with one arm raised. This does make her hard to balance on a non-flat surface, owing to her small size, being 1.4″ long and 0.9″ high. The colouration is a bit off again, but not so bad as with Michael.

Mandrills have a decent presence in toy form, and I’d say this was on the middle end of them. Not the best, but ok. They do make for a nice pair, especially for 1:24 scale. They are long discontinued, so eBay is your best bet, especially since the “Vulnerable” line, meaning there are only 20,000 sets were made, so if you like it, garb it while you can!