Editor’s note: As one of the most prolific contributors to the Animal Toy Forum, Brontodocus has posted dozens of spectacular visual walk-arounds over the years. With the launch of the Animal Toy Blog he has kindly given the editors permission to migrate his walk-arounds from the forum to the blog. This post will therefore be the first of many! As per the walk-around format, these overviews will be text-light and image-heavy, but what spectacular images they are! Brontodocus has also become an author for the Animal Toy Blog so he can potentially edit/supplement old walk-arounds, or even post new reviews in the future. Now, onto the walk-around! – Animaltoyforum
The AAA mantis shrimp, Oratosquilla oratoria (De Haan, 1844), like so many AAA figures, is a cast from a real specimen. This time it’s not only identifiable but also correctly identified by AAA – it’s stamped “ORATOSQUILLA”.
This is probably because that species is the most important stomatopod in commercial fishery – these are commonly sold as food in Asia.
The length of the carapace is 73 mm, total length (anterior margin of head to tip of the telson) is 255 mm. The figure is made of translucent rubber.
The rest of this post will be a detailed walk-around of the figure…
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Nice introduction to Brontodocus’ work. I must admit, I question the ID of the figure, however. If it was cast from a specimen, it is too big to be O. oratoria. More-likely, this figure represents Squilla empusa, which is common and more familiar (and more likely to have specimens to cast) and fits the size and other morphologies.
Weird & fascinating :)! Awesome figure!
I wonder how many of these unusual AAA casts exist. When did they produce all these for the first time?
Unfortunately there is no date stamped underneath. Oh, and they did a variety of crustaceans, at least two Dungeness Crabs, two Lobsters, Tiger Prawn, Rock Lobster, lots of swimming crabs, several differently sized Crucifix Crabs. They even made quite a variety of different marine mollusks (mainly clams)…
I’ve been looking everywhere for this guy but can’t find him, can anyone help me out?
I’ve been looking for this guy EVERYWHERE but still can’t find him! Can anyone help me out?
Perhaps it’s actually cast from a zebra mantis shrimp, very similar aside from colour but I’m fairly certain they’re larger.
Thanks for the info but it’s definitely not cast from that one. the Zebra Mantis Shrimp does not have the median carina and lateral spines on the dorsal side of the pleon.
See, this kind of thing is what I get up for in the morning! I had no idea.
This may be the only AAA figure with perfect colouration.
Crustaceans aren’t even of especial interest to me, and I even I have to admit this is one of the coolest figures ever made out of synthetic polymer.