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

If something is “as dead as a Dodo”, it is very dead, gone forever, reflecting on the fate of said animal, the Dodo. From the island of Mauritius, these flightless pigeons roamed the land, eating fruit and shellfish and lacking fear. Then man came along and introduced new predators, ones that Dodo’s lacked, and soon they were gone from their native lands, never to return. The Noah’s Pals produced a pair as part of their line, showing the consequences of not having conservation.

Since there are two figures, I’ll look at each in turn, starting with the male, Dylan. Dylan stands in an erect posture, looking out to see what’s happening. A little underwhelming a pose, but does well enough. Standing 1.8″ high and 1.4″ from beak to tail feathers. Colouration is that of this is classic Dodo depiction, grey and white feathers, as opposed to the more modern and accurate darker colours, with a yellow face. Not bad, very old school.

Now to the female, Danielle. To show a form of sexual dimorphism (and better tell which is which) by a grey beak and face. This makes sense that a female might have duller colours than males, who need to display to the females. The pose is staring at the ground, perhaps looking for food or preparing for something else (what that is, I’ll leave to your imagination!) She is smaller, at 1.4″ high and 1.6″ from beak to tail feathers. It’s colours match the male, sans the face.

I want to talk accuracy on these, because that is one of the downsides to it. This is based on older depictions, showing this birds as large and dumpy, practically obese compared to what it should be, based on second or third hand information, or on the pets of Europeans that were over fed. Even the colouration is wrong by this, as it is more likely that the earlier paintings, which show darker colours, are more accurate.

This is a nice set, very well detailed, nicely scaled (all of Noah’s Pals are 1:24 scale) and with decent posture. This set was made as a reward for those who collected and typed the code for all of the models in the set, which could be difficult given some were restricted in production. I found this set on eBay, where the seller had sold several before and still had more. This set can be pricey, but I do think it is worth considering.