Black Rhinoceros (Ravensburger - tiptoi)

[brontodocus]

Ravensburger (a German company which mostly produces board games) offers interactive toys that can be played with a pen-shaped device, the so-called tiptoi pen. While this is more interesting for my kids than for me, Ravensburger's release of animal figures which started in 2013 contains some interesting figures (this year they also started releasing dinosaur figures which very much resemble Schleich World of History dinosaurs). I don't think all of their figure range can compete with major animal toy companies but one figure stands out so much that I needed to have it. In fact I think it surpasses most (if not all) previously existing toy figures representing this species. I'm talking about the Ravensburger tiptoi 00366 Black or Hook-lipped Rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis (Linnaeus, 1758). Snout-vent length is approx. 127 mm and shoulder height 70 mm, so the scale is between approx. 1:19 and 1:25. The human figure (man from Safari Ltd People in Motion Toob) is approx. 1:23 - 1:27 scale.
Black Rhinos are on the brink of extinction and have been severely decimated by poaching and habitat loss with three subspecies already being extinct. By 2008 the total population had slightly recovered and was estimated to be 4,240 individuals but the species still qualifies being categorised "Critically Endangered" by IUCN http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/6557/0.
There's also a comparison shot of the tiptoi Black Rhino with the similar sized 2014 Wild Safari Wildlife version.
The scientific name Diceros bicornis should not be confused with that of a Southeast Asian Flower Beetle species, Dicheros bicornis (Latreille, 1817), which is often misspelled Diceros bicornis.














I have to say that currently the tiptoi Black Rhinoceros is my favourite figure representation of this species - only the large yellow tiptoi dot that is necessary for the tiptoi pen to work is quite distracting for animal figure collectors. So I had to customise mine and now the tiptoi dot is all gone.

The tiptoi dot:


After customisation the dot isn't visible anymore, the figure was drybrushed and the pinkish lips were painted grey:



Edit 2017-02-05: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

A really impresive figure from Ravensburger and it have the same size that Safari figure even  .

[widukind]

TipToi have any good figurines, this rhino is one of that 

[brontodocus]

Walk-around images of tiptoi Black Rhino are visible again.