1/32 scale animals

Never seen the Epoch dragons before

Because we are approaching winter, the polar bears have come out! I recently found these Hausser Elastolin polar bears, an adult and two cubs:
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The adult has a shoulder height of 3.9/122 cm. According to Polarbearfacts.net, adult male bears have shoulder height between 122 and 160 cm, but females are smaller, so this could be either a small male bear or a fairly large female bear.

I was lucky to find all Reisler polar bears too:
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The Reisler adult walking bear has a shoulder height of 4.2/134 cm. The upright standing bear is 8.0/256 cm tall. Polarbearfacts.net says that females reach 180 to 240 cm and males 240 to 300 cm.

I was surprised how light they are. The material is similar to the Starlux hard plastic, but the Reislers are hollow. I found out after giving them a bath: they are now leaking water. I hope all the water (and the soap) gets out, as I am a bit concerned it may do internal damage in the long term.

For size comparison, here we have the Reisler and Hausser Elastolin polar bears with the Kaiyodo Wild Rush and a Britains polar bear, which are both a bit smaller.
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Nice polar bear family

It is wonderful how you mix Reisler with Kaiyodo. Your collection has a very special touch!

Thanks, Andreas and Rogério. The Reisler and Kaiyodo polar bears are indeed very different in style (and age), but because they have a similar size, it works fine to put them together.

Now for something a bit different. As Blublub mentioned a while ago, quite a few of the Safari Toobs have 1:32 scale animals. The quality of the older toobs is often not so great, so I wasn’t so keen to buy them. But Megaptera pointed out to me that the recent Toobs are of much better quality. Indeed, they are, so I bought the Dolphins Toob a little while ago. No fewer than 8 of the 10 dolphins are “my” scale, so that’s a great score! Here they are:
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Let’s do some comparisons. First, the bottlenose dolphin. Here is the Safari between the Colorata Marine Mammals and Schleich 2006-2013 bottlenose. The Colorata and Schleich are more interesting in my opinion and are both 1:32 scale, but the Safari has a more typical size, so very useful to have. The Colorata has a length of 6.8/218 cm, the Safari is 9.5/304 cm and the Schleich is 11.3/362 cm.
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Here is the Safari Atlantic white-sided dolphin next to his Pacific counterpart from Colorata:
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The Safari Atlantic dolphin has a length of 8.5/272 cm and the Colorata Pacific dolphin is 6.0/192 cm. The Atlantic species is indeed larger. For example, Animal Diversity Web (ADW) says that the Atlantic species is between 2.5 and 3 m, whereas the Pacific species is between 1.7 and 2.5 m.

I don’t have any other 1:32 scale dolphins (but I am working on this) except for the Colorata Commerson’s dolphin and the Schleich Orca, so here is a comparison with those:
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From left to right, top to bottom, Southern right whale dolphin 8.8/282 cm (Wikipedia: 180-290 cm), Irrawaddy dolphin 8.6/275 cm (ADW: 146-275 cm), Schleich Orca (19.5/624 cm), Colorata Commerson’s dolphin (4.5/144 cm), Indo-pacific humpbacked dolphin 8.5/272 cm (Wikipedia: 200-350 cm), striped dolphin 8.5/272 cm (NOAA Fisheries: males up to 275 cm), Atlantic spotted dolphin 7.0/224 cm (NOAA Fisheries: 152-229 cm) and white-beaked dolphin 8.6/275 cm (Wikipedia: 230-310 cm). So most of the Toob dolphins are close to the maximum size for their species.

Finally, one more photo of my favourites, the Indo-pacific humpbacked dolphin and the Atlantic spotted dolphin:
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And yes, the Indo-pacific humpbacked dolphin can indeed be completely pink.

For cetaceans, the scale subject gains an extra interest. How nice look that orca when compared with the other dolphins. With whales it may be even more exciting.

I have a few whales. I won't manage this year, but I'll introduce them next year. The large marine animals don't always look so interesting (grey and a bit shapeless, just my opinion), but one reason I collect them is indeed because they are great for size comparisons.

When I put the Safari dolphins on TAW, I noticed that quite a few are very rare or unique in the animal figure world. So well done to Safari for doing something special.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I have a few whales. I won't manage this year, but I'll introduce them next year. The large marine animals don't always look so interesting (grey and a bit shapeless, just my opinion), but one reason I collect them is indeed because they are great for size comparisons.

When I put the Safari dolphins on TAW, I noticed that quite a few are very rare or unique in the animal figure world. So well done to Safari for doing something special.

Yes, there was some dolphin sets in the past but Safari really made some unrepresented species. Some are even needing pages at the wiki.

When I was in Tokyo a little while ago, I found these Qualia sea turtles. I had seen them on Japanese auction sites before, but I didn’t know what their size was until I saw them in a shop. Fortunately, five of them are 1:32 scale: a green sea turtle, loggerhead turtle, a pair of loggerhead hatchlings, a hawksbill turtle and an olive ridley turtle. There is a sixth turtle in the set, a leatherback turtle, but I didn’t buy it, because it is too small. Four of them can be joined together with their bases so that they form a circle. Together, they make for a very colourful display:
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They are very photogenic, so it is difficult to stop taking photographs. Because they are fixed to the base on their side (rather than put up on a stick below), it really looks as if they are swimming in photos. I won’t bore you with all my photos here, I’ve put more on TAW.

The green sea turtle’s carapace length is 2.7/86 cm. Wikipedia says 78–112 cm and Conserveturtles.org 83 – 114 cm. Despite his name, he isn’t green, but I believe they often aren’t.
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The loggerhead turtle also has a carapace length of 2.7/86 cm. Wikipedia says that their straight-line carapace length is 70-95 cm and Conserveturtles.org says 80-110 cm.
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The carapace of the loggerhead hatchlings is 1.2/38 cm. So no longer real hatchlings in 1:32 scale, but I find they are OK as young loggerheads.
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The Hawksbill turtle measures 2.4/77 cm in carapace length. According to Conserveturtles.org, their length is 71-89 cm.
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The olive ridley sea turtle carapace length is 2.1/67 cm. Conserveturtles.org says 62-70 cm. I assume it is an olive ridley turtle because an Ebay seller sells it as this species, but I initially thought it was a Kemp’s ridley turtle. Looking at photos of the real turtles on the internet, I find it hard to tell which one it is. Does anyone know?
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I did get another leatherback sea turtle, via Brett. It was produced by Yujin. Wikipedia says the leatherback’s curved carapace length is 100-175 cm (average 155 cm). The Yujin has a straight-line carapace length of 4.3/138 cm. It is rather flat (a bit too flat in my opinion), so its curved length is about the same. As far as I can tell, it is identical to the Play Visions leatherback, perhaps with slightly different painting. Here it is next to the Yujin loggerhead:
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The final Chelonian I recently got is "Lonesome George" by Kaiyodo. Sadly, Lonesome George was the last known Pinta Island tortoise. He died in 2012. The model is fantastic: the way he stands on his legs and how his carapace is modelled are very impressive. He isn’t particularly photogenic though and I found it hard to take photos that do him justice.
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The model has a carapace length of 3.9/125 cm. I haven’t been able to find out what size the real Lonesome George was, but Wikipedia says that the Galapagos tortoises from Santa Cruz Island are 75 to 150 cm. I assume that the latter length isn’t the carapace length, because according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest ever tortoise (a Santa Cruz tortoise) was 135.8 cm long (presumably carapace length). Anyhow, it seems like the Kaiyodo tortoise is large for its species but not excessively large. Here it is next to the Britains giant tortoise, which has the same carapace length.
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And we have a Chelonia party! (Adults only)
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I am currently collecting other Japanese-made turtles and tortoises. Often hard to figure out what their exact size is, but I am making some progress.

Wonderful pictures!
@Glytemys, another effective TAW editor, could surely be the best person to help you identifying the rydley sea turtle species. Actually, I've seen these turtles on TAW once you entered them at the wiki. I got surprised once I had no idea they existed and they are very beautiful. I see you haven't probably managed a way to add the Kaiyodo figure, I find it interesting that they haven't replicated the taxidermy work and that they gave to it another pose. You're also right that Yujin reused several Play Visions moulds.
The Kaiyodo figure works perfectly at your favorite scale even if it do not matches perfectly the size of the taxidermied animal, it is a Pinta Island tortoise representative even if it makes reference to a particular specimen. It was also quite lucky when these sea turtles went all into your scale range.

Sorry for double post. Translating this link the figure is listed as an olive ridley sea turtle. Was this the website you used?

Thanks, Andreas and Rogério. No, it was a different website, so the one you found, Rogério, confirms that it is an olive ridley. Lonesome George is here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] At some point, I'd like to tidy up the Kaiyodo TAW section, because there are so many sections and embeddings that it is hard to find things.

Yes, finding animals to scale is often a matter of luck. There is a lot of bad luck too

Ah, I put Lonesome George under Galapagos tortoise, that's why you couldn't find it. I have now moved it to Pinta Island tortoise. Sorry, I hadn't realised there was a separate entry for that.

Some subspecies have their own pages. We use to transclude it into the respective species page but the Pinta Island tortoise page couldn't be found through the Galapagos tortoise page. I fixed it now.
If you want to tidy up the Kaiyodo section, feel free to do it, it would be fantastic actually. I rarely work in that section once when I worked a little, it was structured in a very different way from what I use to do. It is also somewhat complex once some series are crossed over different brands. If you find a good formula, you have good sources and you have time, please do it, it is a very important section of the wiki. You can also discuss some ideas if you wish before starting.

As promised, here are my 1:32 whales. Take a comfortable seat, because this is going to be quite long  .

I have two pilot whales, one from CollectA and one from Safari. I like the Safari best; the open mouth makes it more interesting than the CollectA.
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(CollectA on the left)

The name pilot whale is a bit confusing, as they are more closely related to dolphins than whales. There are two species of pilot whales: Long-finned and short-finned pilot whales. They are very difficult to tell apart, but as their names suggest, the pectoral fins of long-finned pilot whales are generally longer. But the difference is quite subtle: According to Wikipedia, the fins of long-finned pilot whales are 18-27% of their body length and those of short-finned pilot whales are 1/6th of the body size (16.7%). But the latter is an average, so presumably there is quite a bit of overlap with long-finned pilot whales.

The fins of the CollectA pilot whale are 18% of its body length and the fins of the Safari are 20%. That is, when they are measured on the front side; they are a bit shorter on the rear side, so I think both pilot whales could be either long- or short finned.

The more critical question for me is whether they are 1:32 scale. Both species of pilot whales seem to have a similar size – perhaps long-finned ones are slightly larger. Size information on the web isn’t very consistent, but Wikipedia says that male long-finned pilot whales are up to 6.7 m in length (Animal Diversity Web/ADW even says 8.5 m), with females 1 m shorter. Short-finned pilot whales are anywhere between 3 and 6 m, again with males being longer than females. The CollectA is 19/608 cm and the Safari is 15/480 cm, so the CollectA may be a better example of a long-finned pilot whale and the Safari better as a short-finned whale. For size comparison, here they are with some other marine life: Safari Toob bottlenose dolphin, Colorata Californian sea lion, Qualia green sea turtle:
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The killer whale (or better: Orca) is another large dolphin. They are easy to find in 1:32 scale, because every major brand produces at least one. I have three, a Schleich (shown before in this topic), a Papo and the Monterey Bay Safari. Whether these are the best, I don’t know; if anyone would like to recommend another one, that would be great.
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(From left to right: Safari, Papo, Schleich)

The Schleich has a length of 19.5/624 cm, the Papo is 18.5/592 cm and the Safari is about 17.8/570 cm (measured along the curve of the body). Like many large marine animals, orcas can vary a lot in size, depending on sex (males are about 1 m longer) and ecotype. Apparently, the largest orca ever measured was 975 cm, but generally they are between 490 and 800 cm (Wikipedia, Seaworld Parks).

Again, I think I like the Safari best, because it has an elegant, slender body, is painted matt and its curved body shape makes it look like it is really swimming. It isn’t perfect though, as the painting on its mouth is a bit rough and its teeth are pink.

Here they are with some land predators: Hausser Elastolin polar bear, Britains tiger, Colorata African wild dog.
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Two beluga whales: One from Papo (16/512 cm) and one from Maia & Borges (15.2/486 cm). Kelley and colleagues (2014) in Marine Mammal Science measured 312 mature belugas and found that they were between 268 and 518 cm, so both figures are quite large.
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(Papo on the left)

Closely related to the beluga is the narwhal. I have the recently retired Papo that is 15/480 cm long (tusk: 5.4/173 cm). It’s so-so: The paintwork is quite crude. Kelley and colleagues also measured 119 mature Narwhals, and the largest was 548 cm. They were considered mature if they were at least 388 cm (males) and 337 cm (females). The longest tusk was 279 cm (normally only males have tusks). I also have the CollectA Narwhal, which is nicer, but too large at 18/576 cm. Although ADW (usually reliable) says that Narwhals can reach up to 620 cm, none of the research articles I found reported any larger than 548 cm. Here is the Papo with a few other animals with tusks: the Britains African elephant, Colorata walrus, Britains wild boar:
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That’s a win for the Narwhal tusk!

Finally, we are getting to the proper whales. Here is the Schleich minke whale (already introduced by Christophe in this topic). It was part of the Schleich 1:32 scale sea animals range, but they didn’t always get the scale right, so let’s check! It is 23/736 cm. Wikipedia says that they are between 6.16 and 8.5 metres, so yes, Schleich was right.
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I was quite surprised how “small” and slender the minke is. Schleich no longer produces this minke whale figure (discontinued in 2009), but Maia & Borges still do. There is also a CollectA minke whale and according to the official CollectA measurements (not always correct), it’s 23/624 cm, so it would just be OK for 1:32 scale.

Schleich also produced a sperm whale as part of their 1:32 series. This same whale was also sold by Papo (until 2018) and I believe Maia & Borges still sell it. I got the Papo:
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It’s much bulkier than the minke whale:
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(The Britains human is 5.4/173 cm tall.)

The sperm whale has a length of 29.5/944 cm when measured over its tummy and 32/1024 cm measured over its spine; I guess its real length is somewhere in between. Research articles I checked report sperm whales up to about 16 m, but the question here is what the minimum length of a mature sperm whale is. A research article by Nishiwaki et al. (1963) examined 277 sperm whales at Japanese whaling stations    and they determined that females reach sexual maturity at about 8.6 m and males at about 9.5 m, while Dawson and colleagues (1995) estimated the total length of 41 New Zealand sperm whales from the length of tip of the head to the dorsal fin and obtained an estimated length of 9.32-15.83 m. So the Papo is small, but appears to be possible as a mature individual. However, in some other articles, the minimum length is longer, so it seems to depend on the particular population.

My sperm whale has a calf, from Maia & Borges. It is 13/416 cm long. Nishiwaki et al. found that newborns are about 4 m at birth.
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And here is the pride of my sealife collection, the Safari Monterey Bay humpback whale! It holds several records in my collection: It is the largest figure at 38/1216 cm (measured either over spine or belly), the heaviest (780 g) and the most expensive (£29.95).
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Was it worth the money? Yes, it’s very impressive, not just because of its size, but also of the way it looks. The large pectoral fins and the bend in its tail make it exude power and strength. It’s certainly the most interesting of my whales. Even more interesting from below than above:
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The best data about humpback sizes probably comes from an article by Chittleborough (1965), cited in Clapham and Mead. The mean length of physically mature males was 13.0 m and it was 13.9 m for females. On average, male humpbacks reached sexual maturity at 11.8 m and females at 11.9 m. The largest humpbacks that Chittleborough measured were a 14.3-m male and a 15.5-m female. There are reports of larger humpback whales, but it is unclear how reliable these are.

It has a calf too, from Papo:
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The calf is 13.8/442 cm. Livescience and acsonline (American cetacean society) say that newborns are between 10 and 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) long, though Wikipedia says 6 m (size of mother’s head). The latter seems rather large though and would be larger than most mother’s heads, so I am not convinced it is correct.

Let’s have a few more comparisons:
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My conclusion is that whales are large, but elephants aren’t small

And here is the humpback whale with some whale pretenders:
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I don’t have a blue whale, but I was quite surprised that there is one in 1:32 scale by Kaiyodo. It is 75.8 cm/2426 cm (http://animaltoyforum.com/index.php?topic=1505.0). There is another even larger one by PNSO that is given as 1:35 scale and is 99 cm! (http://www.pnso.cn/en/models/index/24) In 1:32 scale it would be 3168 cm; whether such large blue whales really exist is controversial, as the largest scientifically measured blue whale was 29.9 m according to Wikipedia.

Apart from the blue whales (and the orcas, as mentioned), I believe that my collection of 1:32 whales is quite complete, but if anyone knows any other whales that I can add to my collection, please let me know!

I wanted a lot to see your cetaceans. That is surely a good subject to explore in a correct scale with all these mostruous sized creatures!
I absolutely agree, the Safari humpback is a masterpiece, probably my favorite whale figure of ever and Ive never seen it in real.
You have to get a moneybox and find extra room to get one of these blue whales you mentioned. Everything looks so nice in your collection!

Very very nice

Thanks, both. It's worth seeing the Safari humpback in reality; it's difficult to capture its grandeur in photos.

This week, I received several 1/32 Yowies from Kelly (pipsxlch). The US Yowies are very hard to get in the UK, so I am very pleased that I got these. Thank you, Kelly! I wasn’t expecting the highest quality, because after all, they are figures hidden in chocolate eggs (I believe), but it turns out that they are very nice. Well painted and good-looking sculpts.
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First up, the cheetah. As I have mentioned before, the cheetah is one of my favourite animals, but it is quite hard to find in 1/32 scale. I had noticed the Yowie before on TAW, but didn’t think I’d be able to find it. But I have! Here he is compared with the Britains panther:
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Because he has his legs stretched out, it’s a bit difficult to say what his shoulder height is, but I think it’s about 2.5/80 cm. Male cheetahs have an average shoulder height of about 77 cm. His length is 4.2/134 cm; Males and Dickman (2003) found that males’ length was 108-152 cm.

The giant river otter is even more difficult to measure accurately. Wikipedia says that head plus body length of males is 150-170 cm and females 100-150 cm, while Discover Wildlife and Seaworld Parks say that these giants can be up to 180 cm. When I put him on a ruler, he seems to be under 5.3/170 (or 5.6/180) cm:
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But when I compare him to a 5.4/173 cm zookeeper, I am not so sure:
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What do you think?

There may only be two Irrawaddy dolphin plastic figures, but amazingly, both are 1:32 scale. They have very different sizes though:
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The Yowie (left) is 5.5/176 cm long, whereas the Safari is almost 1 metre longer. According to Animal Diversity Web, both are 1:32 (between 146 cm and 275 cm).

The Southern Lowland gorilla (centre) goes very well with my Britains gorillas:
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The Yowie has forgotten his lipstick . His shoulder height is 3.1/99 cm and I estimate about 5.3/177 cm when standing up. Wikipedia says that an upright male can be up to 1.8 m tall, and on average males stand upright at 1.63 m and females at 1.5 m.

The Andean bear is very beautiful. It’s easy to get polar bears, brown bears, black bears and pandas in 1:32 scale, but other bears are extremely rare. His shoulder height is 2.6/83 cm. Wikipedia and several other websites say they are 60-90 cm at the shoulder, but animal facts say only 70-80 cm. In any case, his head + body length is 4.8/154 cm, which is well within the 120-200 cm species range (Wikipedia). Here with his bigger cousins (Kitan brown bear and Hausser Elastolin polar bear):
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Finally, my favourite, which was an extra gift from Kelly: the South American tapir. Its shoulder height is 2.9/93 cm. Wikipedia says they are between 77 and 108 cm. Here between the Britains Malayan tapir and the Colorata South American tapir (from the Australian and neotropical regions box):
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I like the textured hair and he is rather cute too. The Colorata is quite OK, but a bit plain compared to the Yowie. My camera makes the Yowie a bit yellow. The colour in this photo is closer to reality:
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I also got a nice zebra shark. It has the right size for an adult, but when I started “researching” these sharks, I discovered they only look like zebras when they are juveniles (up to 70 cm), after which they start looking like leopards. At least I am not the only one to be confused: Early taxonomists thought they were different species.

This is a gorgeous topic !!!!

I have just been through most of it, and can't stop smiling

So much to comment on, that I'll just cut down to two :

-Delightful to see good, old Reisler, the Danish brand from my childhood
- And Safari Monterey Bay humpback whale  OMG ! I have given up getting this beauty, and even if I found it on Ebay.com, just the cost of shipping and importing would be about what could feed my horses for 2 winter months

Thanks, Susanne and Andreas.

SUSANNE wrote:

-Delightful to see good, old Reisler, the Danish brand from my childhood
- And Safari Monterey Bay humpback whale  OMG ! I have given up getting this beauty, and even if I found it on Ebay.com, just the cost of shipping and importing would be about what could feed my horses for 2 winter months

Where do Danish people sell their Reislers online? I thought they might still be relatively common in Denmark second hand, but I believe there is no Danish Ebay.

I found the humpback whale here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Not cheap, but whether you can feed your horses for that amount?

Again a great work finding figures for your favourite scale and Yowies are really interesting figures, mainly the USA series.
Although I defend that a figure to work at a certain scale we don't need to be absolutely precise because there is some size variation among specimens, it is undoubtful that your giant otter is too big. Though, I don't know any other that is closer to the required scale than this one. Maybe only the rare Marx figure but it is monochromatic.

rogerpgvg wrote:

....
Where do Danish people sell their Reislers online? I thought they might still be relatively common in Denmark second hand, but I believe there is no Danish Ebay.....

Most used is DBA ( Den Blå Avis = The blue paper ) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

If you need help with language or such, please PM me ( My e-mail does not work for some reason)
Are you looking for something special ? I have friend who finds them on flea markets.