Malayan Tapir (Wildlife by CollectA)

Review and images by caipirasuchus; edited by bmathison1972

Tapirs (family Tapiridae) are cool. Their curious proboscis, big size, and somewhat prehistoric appearance made them very charismatic creatures. It’s not surprising that tapirs are very common in pop culture, at zoos, and as toys. What’s surprising is that nobody reviewed this animal here in ATB until now. So, let’s launch tapirs here with the Malayan species made by CollectA in 2020.

Malayan tapirs (Tapirus indicus) are the quintessential tapirs. It’s the only of the four (recognized) living species found outside the Americas, a relict that denounces the Eurasian origins for this clade. They have the most striking color patterns of all living tapirs: while the American species are usually uniform brown to black, Malayan tapirs have the anterior half of the body (from the head to the forelimbs) and the hindlimbs black, with a big white mark that extends from the shoulder to the hindquarters. This disrupting coloration made them almost invisible at night, a very interesting case of camouflage in a big, terrestrial mammal.

This figure made by CollectA has a big problem, however: it is a repainting of another model, the Baird’s tapir made by the company in 2013. It’s a so lazy move that on the info on its belly you can read “2013” instead of “2020”, the year of release of the Malayan tapir. The happy thing is that tapirs are, overall, very similar to each other externally, with differences so subtle (e.g. American tapirs have slightly longer proboscis) that would hardly be represented in mainstream toys, in any case. Let’s ignore that this model is a Baird’s tapir under disguise and question how far it works as a Malayan tapir.

The answer is: pretty good! After all, CollectA is famous for its detailed ungulates, and this male tapir is no exception. It has a very dynamic pose, with a lowered head and with the left forelimb slightly raised. It looks as if it is investigating the litter after some fallen fruits. The texture of the animal is a bit rough, which values the short coat of this species, but it’s not uniform: under the mandible and in the ventral part of the neck the fur appears to be a bit longer, while in the limbs, there are some lines that indicate folds in the skin, giving the impression that the fur is shorter in these regions. It presents four toes in the forelimb and three in the hindlimbs. Of course, these features can be said for the Baird’s tapir.

The paint job is superb. In a detailed analysis, you can see that the black part is not black in overall, being a bit browner in some regions. The same can be said about the white mark: it’s white, but in certain parts, you can see a smoky brown or grey. I can guarantee that this is not because my model is dirty: it’s paint and gives a very natural look to the model. The toes are brown, becoming darker at the tips, the nares are pink, and the ears have a white border at the tip, a feature of the species. The eyes are glossy black and very lively. All in all, the paint job is so well done that we can almost say that we have forgiven CollectA for not making an original model for this species!

The model is about 6 cm high at the shoulders and has a length of about 9.5 cm (considering its pose, I also measured the snout to tail length, which is about 14.5 cm). Since Malayan tapirs usually measure 1.9-2.6 meters in snout to tail length and 0.9 to 1.1 meters tall, this model is 1:13-1:18.

So yeah, CollectA may almost have screwed up by opting to repaint an already existing tapir model instead of creating a new one. But in the end, this Malayan tapir is one of the most detailed figurines in the market today for the species, if not the most detailed. I recommend it to anyone interested in collecting Southeast Asian species, ungulates, or even those who want to give its Baird’s tapir a synchronized friend.