Praying Mantis (Little Wonders by CollectA)

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. As both a dinosaur and animal lover, I started my collection of dinosaur and animal figures quite a while ago. And as a result, here I am; writing reviews for both blogs. This is my first review for the Animal Toy Blog and it is an immense pleasure and honour for me. Today, we will take a look at CollectA’s praying mantis figure; one of CollectA’s early figures.

The praying mantis is a fascinating and iconic insect. Interesting, dark and strange facts about it are as follows: there are over 2,000 species of mantids; whilst mating, the female grasps the head of the male and begins to eat him; as well as insects, a large praying mantis will even eat animals larger than itself such as lizards, small frogs and birds; and finally, mantises can turn their weird, alien-like heads 180 degrees to scan their surroundings with two large compound eyes. The largest species of praying mantis in the world is the giant stick mantis (Ischnomantis gigas) from Northern Africa and the largest species in North America is the Tenodera sinensis, the Chinese mantis, a species introduced from China. The Japanese giant mantis (T. aridifolia) has been made by several Japanese companies and as for the Western companies such as Safari Ltd, CollectA (as seen here), Papo, K&M International, among others, they have tackled neither species but instead, have produced the conventional and more popular, Mantis religiosa (praying mantis). For 2020, CollectA has released a mini insect and spider tube (see review here), in which there was a small version of the praying mantis figure we are taking a look at today. Let’s take a closer look at its larger counterpart now.

My first impressions when looking at this figure is that it successfully (if not perfectly) reflects the overall morphology of the praying mantis. Insects are difficult to reproduce faithfully in toy form. The spikes on the front legs, for example, are thinner and smaller on a real-life praying mantis, the legs and antennae are also thinner, the complex wing venation, the exoskeletal sutures; so yes, it is difficult to reproduce these exoskeletal features faithfully on a toy insect. But as I said earlier, this figure is successful in delivering us what we know of the praying mantis.

The figure measures 10.4 cm in length and 9.5 cm in height (measurements taken and according to CollectA’s own website). Both the sculpt and paint job is simple, yet convincing. For example, a light wash has been used to make the wing venation pop out.

It is a figure that I would recommend without doubt to adult collectors and especially, little ones, due to how simple yet convincing this figure is. It reflects the basic overall appearance of the praying mantis quite effectively. Of course, as said earlier, a toy insect cannot deliver us what we find on a real one. As always, the choice is yours as there are other versions, but if you are a completist collector or if you have children who like animals or insects, I would recommend this figure. It is a figure still in production and should be available wherever CollectA’s figures are sold or on online stores like Amazon, eBay, among others.