We’re going all fish today! Cool fish! Extinct lobefins! Weird sharks! Oddly…all sharks are carpet sharks. Short introduction. It’s a great bunch of figures so let’s go!
FameMaster 4D Puzzle Lionfish
I have spoken about the FameMaster fish puzzles before so there is not a lot more to say about it. This is another figure from the Sea World set, item 26542, and like that triggerfish is a fantastic representation of the fish. Possibly even better–something about the material of the puzzle, and the size of the figure (about 9cm long) fives it the chance to really demonstrate the wide, spiny dorsal and pectoral fins. And it definitely has the appearance of the real fish. The good news is that the figures are still in production, although I’m never completely sure how easy it is to actually find them, it seems pretty sporadic.
Safari Ltd Brownbanded Bamboo shark
Next up, the first shark today, and the first carpet shark no less! From the Safari Ltd Sea Life collection, number 100311. It was released in 2019, and is a great addition to the Safari line, and to collections of shark figures. It’s a great model, really capturing the long, slender bodies of these unusual sharks. I really appreciate that it was made–and is still available–giving us a less conventional shark morphology. I highly recommend tracking this figure down for any collection or toy box. It’s only caveat may be that the figure is a bit large, relative to other sharks models. So it wouldn’t really scale well with other sharks and rays. But it looks great.
Schleich Spotted Wobbegong
Following the carpet shark theme, we have the Schleich Spotted Wobbegong from their Sea Animals line. This figure is item number 14559, first released in 2006 and retired in 2009. The same figure was, however, released with a coral diver in 2016 with a more greenish paint job in the same sculpt, and that one is apparently still available. In both instances, the figure is an excellent model, with lots of details. The face tassels could be a little more elaborate, but that’s probably a function of trying to sculpt a small toy figure. I definitely recommend getting this one as well. It’s more of a model than a toy, compared to the babmboo shark (a function of the material) but there aren’t many carpet shark figures available (not counting the whale shark of course!) so they should be encouraged!
Kaiyodo UHA Dinotales Series 1 and 1.2 Axelrodichthys (2 versions)
Finally, a revisit to the Dinotales series, this time with a pair of the coelacanth relative Axelrodichthys from Series one, number 15. This was one of my earliest figures from the series, because finding coelacanth figures was hard enough (at the time) but a prehistoric coelacanth was an amazing find for me! At first I was only aware of the first series, wherein the Axelrodichthys has a pattern similar to (although not exactly the same as) the modern West Indian Latimeria. I later discovered the series 1v2 later–including the different pattern for the Axelrodichthys, which was more closely inspired by the Indonesian Latimeria. I was fortunate to eventually track one of them down; the unique colouring really stood out from the other coelacanths I had picked up by then (which generally hewed to the blue colours). The sculpt does a really great job of differentiating this figure from the modern coelacanth, especially the long snout and body proportion (too many ‘prehistoric’ coelacanth figures are just sculpts of the modern species. Definitely a welcome addition to a collection–about as difficult to find as other Dinotales these days…possibly more so, as the species is generally sought after. Worth the search though.
