CollectA - New for 2019

[Badger]

Based on the patterning, the minke whale looks like it's meant to represent the dwarf minke whale (southern hemisphere form/subspecies of the common minke whale), and as the longest recorded specimen of that, it's approximately 1:40 scale (and easily 1:35 for a more average sized specimen); fairly similar in scale to figures like the MBA humpback and gray whales.

[Isidro]

Hmmm, I was unaware of the existence of a dwarf form of the minke whale. Knowing the scale of it, I re-add it to my wishlist again. Many many thanks for this very useful info!

[bmathison1972]

I have this minke whale and like it (but I am not as scale-conscious as Isidro)

[Badger]

You're welcome Isidro. For future reference, here's a chart comparing different species/subspecies of minke whale. As you can see, the CollectA figure looks most like the one labelled 'Dwarf Minke Whale'.

Top: common minke whale (northern subspecies*)
Middle: common minke whale (southern/dwarf subspecies)
Bottom: Antarctic minke whale (separate species entirely**)


*this is sometimes further divided into north Pacific and north Atlantic subspecies.
**the paper this is from is not open access, so this ID is based on the title of the paper (indicating subject matter) and illustrations I've seen.

Regarding scale; while I'm not as strict on it as Isidro is, I do like my figures to be reasonably sized relative to eachother (so for example, virtually all of Safari's IC line is out of bounds for me, as are gashapon models of large-enough animals).

[bmathison1972]

@Badger I am the same: IC figures are for the most part all too big and when it comes to gashapon figures I only get smaller species (reptiles, amphibians, small fish, small birds, small mammals). While I am not scale-strict, I also like things reasonably close to one another. The only exceptions are arthropods and a few other invertebrates.
When it comes to cetaceans, I have 'standard-sized' whales and 'TOOB/gashapon-sized dolphins', that way the dolphins looks ok next to the whales LOL