Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we’ve just lost the picture, but what we’ve seen speaks for itself. The Animal Toy Blog has apparently been taken over, ‘conquered’ if you will, by a master race of giant space ants. It’s difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the blog reviewers or merely enslave us.
Classification: Arthropods
Crabs (Habitat Earth by Play Visions)
4.7 (3 votes)
Today is a review of the complete set of Crabs by Play Visions, Habitat Earth series (1996). Another in the taxonomically-diverse sets of animals released by Play Visions in the mid-late 1990s. I have made some taxonomic changes to a couple figures in this set since I first presented it on the ATF back in 2016, so it seems like a good time to introduce it to the Blog!
Maine Lobster (Incredible Creatures by Safari Ltd.)
5 (3 votes)
Review and images by Suspsy; edited by bmathison1972
Homarus americanus, better known as the American, Canadian, Atlantic, Maine, or northern lobster, is both the heaviest crustacean and the heaviest of all extant arthropods. Old individuals regularly average around 20 lbs and the record holder, caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977, weighed a staggering 44 lbs, which is heavier than my four year old son!
Gooty Sapphire Ornamental Tarantula (Animals with Superpowers by Yowie Group)
3 (1 votes)
Poecilotheria metallica is a beautiful theraphosid spider from the forests of Andhra Pradesh in India. It goes by several common names, including the Gooty sapphire ornamental tarantula, blue ornamental tarantula, and peacock tarantula, among others. It is an arboreal species, and like many tropical tarantulas, has a very limited geographic distribution, making it prone to population decline.
Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle, life cycle (Bandai Spirits & F-toys)
5 (2 votes)
In just under two years ago, on August 21, 2019, I posted the first review here on the Animal Toy Blog. Now, I have the pleasure of posting review #500! Wow, 500 reviews just under two years! Many thanks to all the reviewers who have made this possible!
Allomyrina dichotoma is known as the Japanese rhinoceros beetle in English and kabutomushi in Japanese.
Rubber Ducky Isopod (Dango Mushi 08 by Bandai)
5 (2 votes)
Rubber Ducky is a common name given to a species of Cubaris that was discovered in limestone caves in Thailand in 2017. To my knowledge, the species is still undescribed (I propose C. erniei). Despite this, it is becoming very popular in the hobby of rearing isopods (honestly, until I investigated this figure before buying it, I had no idea isopods were so popular in terraria).
Fleas, Lice, and Ticks (Play Visions)
5 (1 votes)
OK folks, here we are. I was finally able to complete this holiest of Holy Grail sets, thanks to STS forum member NMR_Okapi who found me the last missing figure! Most of you who follow me on the Blog and forums know I am a professional parasitologist, so it should be no surprise that this has been one of the most sought-after sets for someone like me.
Golden-ringed Dragonfly (B.I.G. Insects by Takara Tomy A.R.T.S.)
5 (2 votes)
Today we are looking at a rather ingenious set of figures by Takara Tomy A.R.T.S., representing the golden-ringed dragonfly (Anotogaster sieboldii), that was released as part of their 2021 B.I.G. Insects collection. Every year, Takara releases a set of five large and articulated arthropods in the B.I.G.
Sally Lightfoot Crab (Incredible Creatures by Safari Ltd.)
4.5 (2 votes)
If there’s any animal ready to jump in the line, it’s the Sally Lightfoot crab (Graspus graspus). Also known as the red rock crab, G.graspus belongs to the genus of ‘lightfoot crabs’ that are named such due to their rapid movements and ability to leap from rock to rock along the shorelines, with the ”Sally” rumored to have been named after a Caribbean dancer.
Butterflies of the World Collectors Case (Safari Ltd.)
3.5 (2 votes)
This is a review of the complete Butterflies of the World set as part of Safari LTD’s Collectors Case series. The undersides of the figures are not detailed, so an overall review of the set seemed more valuable then doing reviews for individual figures. This is one of three butterfly sets by Safari.
Praying Mantis (Little Wonders by CollectA)
3 (2 votes)
Review and images by Animal Lover; edited by bmathison1972
Hello fellow readers and collectors! I am “Animal Lover”. On the Dinosaur Toy Blog, I write reviews by the name “Prehistory Resurrection” (my old name was “Resurrection of the Dinosaurs”). I wrote about more than 10 reviews for the Dinosaur Toy Blog.
Emperor Scorpion (Revogeo by Kaiyodo)
5 (2 votes)
I decided to migrate over my Revogeo emperor scorpion walkaround from the forum, to make the Kaiyodo Revogeo collection complete (to date) on the Blog. I edited the language to reflect the current year.
Today is a walkaround of the emperor scorpion, Pandinus imperator (Koch, 1842) by Kaiyodo – Revogeo, originally released in 2019, and the first in the Revogeo line.
Mud Crab (AAA)
4.3 (3 votes)
Scuttling along shorelines, rummaging in the surf or sand, crustaceans are well known beach living animals, especially the crab. With their pincers, shells and multiple legs, they are well known critters, and have many figures made of them. Here, we see one of many examples made by AAA.
As usual, discerning a species is incredibly tricky, as this is just labelled “crab”.
Japanese Giant Water Bug (Revogeo by Kaiyodo)
4 (4 votes)
Today we are looking at the fourth figure in Kaiyodo’s Revogeo line, following the emperor scorpion (2019), red-clawed crab (2019), and Asian giant hornet (2020). The subject of today’s review is the Japanese giant water bug, Kirkaldyia deyrollei (historically referred to as Lethocerus deyrollei). This giant belostomatid occurs throught much of East Asia, including eastern China, the Amur region of Russia, the Korean Peninsula, Indochina, and Japan.
Butterflies TOOB (Safari Ltd.)
4.3 (3 votes)
Butterflies are unquestionably the most popular and universally loved insects. You would be hard pressed to find someone that fears or loathes butterflies in the same way a lot of folk’s fear and loathe moths, for example. Even if butterflies are basically glorified, diurnal moths themselves. Butterflies and moths both belong to the order Lepidoptera and although moths first appear in the early Jurassic, 200 million years ago, butterflies don’t show up until the Paleocene, 56 million years ago, having evolved directly from moths.