1/32 scale animals

It's a useful website, but because Wikipedia is so explicit that there are no records of arapaimas larger than 307 cm, I am sceptical. Such large arapaimas would certainly be exceptionally rare, see also this article: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

rogerpgvg wrote:

It's a useful website, but because Wikipedia is so explicit that there are no records of arapaimas larger than 307 cm, I am sceptical. Such large arapaimas would certainly be exceptionally rare, see also this article: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

You should not use data from Wikipedia unless you can verify it from a second, independent source. Lots of errors and omissions on Wikipedia.

Very true! But it's of course true of any website, also Fishbase. Martinelli and Petrere (2001) also mention 3 m as the maximum size and the longest arapaima they caught was 194 cm. Their modelling of the length of 1300 arapaimas suggested that none was longer than 2.25 m. The Colorata arapaima won't be admitted to my 1:32 marine park .

I have neglected this topic for a while, too busy with my Breyer Stablemates topic. Perhaps Breyer mania has calmed down a bit, so let’s get back to my other 1:32 scale animals. To start off, a shelf photo, this time with marine life.
 
I always find it harder to arrange my sea life than my land-based animals, because they tend to be larger and I want to hide the bases. Also, I find it slightly odd when sea animals face each other, because when they interact, they usually swim in the same direction rather than towards each other (or that’s what I believe anyway).
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As you can see, my 1:32 scale sea life collection is quite different from my land-based animal collection, because I have no vintage models and as a result of that, almost no sea life smaller than Japanese gashapon size.

Beautiful models in a beautiful display, I love how some of the figures are raised on stands, it makes it look as though they're all swimming in the sea! Those killer whales and the basking shark are really impressive, but I also love those turtles, they look very realistic from here and I love the blue watery colour of their stands!

Fascinating under water world. Due to the diversity of sizes, the fact you work at a certain scale, gives to sealife a special touch of interest. It looks all wonderful to me and someday you will have a 1:32 blue whale, probably hollow and very light made in a 3d printer.

I am sure that at some point, we’ll be able to print high-quality coloured 3D animals in any size. Hopefully before my time comes. I think about 15 years ago, futurologists predicted that everyone would have a 3D printer at home in 10 years’ time, but we now know this didn’t happen.

Bonnie wrote:

Those killer whales and the basking shark are really impressive, but I also love those turtles, they look very realistic from here and I love the blue watery colour of their stands!

The turtles are some of my favourites, because they give colour to my mostly grey sea life collection and they look very different from the streamlined whales, dolphins and sharks. You probably know, the spotted sharks aren’t basking sharks, but whale sharks. They used to confuse me too. 

Talking about whale sharks and basking sharks, I got two new ones. One is the recently released basking shark from CollectA. Ben/RtasVadumee showed a great walkaround recently. I can’t take better photos than Ben, but my expertise is more in taking measurements .
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The basking shark has a total length of 22/704 cm (20.7/662 cm fork length, 19.3/618 cm standard length; just showing off my skills). There is quite a lot of research on the size of basking sharks, but despite this, a lot is still unknown about their growth. The maximum recorded total length of a basking shark was 12.27 m, measured a long time ago in 1851. They rarely reach that size: In an extensive literature search, McClain et al. (2015) found that the largest basking shark had a total length of 10 m. However, most sharks spotted at the coast in shallow waters are juveniles that are much smaller. For example, Sims et al. (1997) measured 47 basking sharks at the English South coast during the summer of 1996 and found that none was larger than 5.5 m in total length. 

Pauly (2002) says that it has not been well established at what size basking sharks become sexually mature: Based on clasper size, Bigelow and Schroeder (1948) suggested that the length at maturity for males is 4.6-6.1m and Last and Stevens (1994) suggested that it is 4-5 m. It’s even harder to determine sexual maturity of females, as it can only be determined for live sharks if they are pregnant and pregnant females are rarely seen. Martin and Harvey-Clark (2004) say that females mature at 8.1-9.8m and 20 years, but it is unclear on what research this is based.

The CollectA is a female, so it may not be large enough to be a mature shark. However, given the uncertainty about females’ size at maturity, the fact that most sighted basking sharks are much smaller and it is larger than the size at which males mature, I am happy to accept her in my 1:32 marine reserve. I hope you don’t think I am cheating.
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Cheating aside, as far as I am aware, this is the very first 1:32 scale basking shark ever commercially produced. I am very pleased to have it, as it is an animal that occurs locally. I mean, I haven’t seen it in the local fishpond, but it feeds in the waters of the Scottish West Coast. One day, when this Corona virus thing is over, I should go and take a boat trip to see whether I can spot any.

The main attraction of the CollectA model is the head with large open mouth. It makes it stand out amongst most of my many other sharks.
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Another large shark I recently bought is this whale shark:
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No, it’s not the 2006-2013 Schleich from the 1:32 Sea Animal series. I haven’t been able to find the Schleich for a reasonable price, so I instead bought a Chinese knock-off. I think it’s a good knock-off. It’s made of heavy, rubbery plastic and it is well painted. There are a few wrinkles in the plastic, but in reality, they aren’t as clear as in the photo and they don’t disturb me. 
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I quite like the darker colour (the original Schleich is less dark) even though whale sharks are probably less dark in reality. But there is individual variation and water can change the colour we perceive.

Its total length is 27/864 cm. It doesn’t have any obvious male or female characteristics, but because it doesn’t have claspers, it looks more like a female. I discussed the size of whale sharks previously in this topic [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. As with basking sharks, it isn’t very clear at what size female whale sharks mature, but it is thought this may be at around 9 m. Most sighted whale sharks are juveniles and much smaller.
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Here are the CollectA basking shark and Schleich copy whale shark together with the Papo whale shark, which is intermediate in size (24/768 cm).
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Now you need a megamouth shark!
Safari basking shark is 14 cm long, not so small but undoubtfully the CollectA model is a much nicer version.
Interesting, when I was a kid, I think even before being aware of hammerheads, there were 4 species of sharks I knew their Portuguese names, the great white, the blue shark, the lesser spotted dogfish and the basking shark. One thing I am sure, the first I've seen was the lesser spotted dogfish once it is a traditional food and we usually could see them easily on fish market. While swimming on beaches, I always dreamed about seeing one alive, it is not completely impossible in my homeland but they never dared to get close to me. Only much later I've seen a shark in an Aquarium and it was a bonnethead, what a silly and unimpressive shark species.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I am sure that at some point, we’ll be able to print high-quality coloured 3D animals in any size. Hopefully before my time comes. I think about 15 years ago, futurologists predicted that everyone would have a 3D printer at home in 10 years’ time, but we now know this didn’t happen.

Bonnie wrote:

Those killer whales and the basking shark are really impressive, but I also love those turtles, they look very realistic from here and I love the blue watery colour of their stands!

The turtles are some of my favourites, because they give colour to my mostly grey sea life collection and they look very different from the streamlined whales, dolphins and sharks. You probably know, the spotted sharks aren’t basking sharks, but whale sharks. They used to confuse me too. 

Talking about whale sharks and basking sharks, I got two new ones. One is the recently released basking shark from CollectA. Ben/RtasVadumee showed a great walkaround recently. I can’t take better photos than Ben, but my expertise is more in taking measurements .
]

Thank you for the correction, I'm so sorry that my whale knowledge is so horrendously bad! But it's always good to learn about species other than dogs and these beautiful models are perfect for that!
Two other beauties there too, that basking shark is a masterpiece, and you definitely are very good with measurements and all the knowledge which comes with this! The whale shark is lovely too!

You can't be an expert on everything; sharks are so different from dogs (though Rogério mentions a dogfish). I only learnt about the difference between the sharks when I started collecting them. 

Rogério wrote:

Now you need a megamouth shark!

I have one: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Rogério wrote:

Safari basking shark is 14 cm long, not so small but undoubtfully the CollectA model is a much nicer version.

I considered the Safari before the CollectA came out, but it's rather small. I could pretend it is a juvenile, but I fear it won't be too long before the STS community exposes me as a cheat. Fortunately, the CollectA is a better model too.

rogerpgvg wrote:

You can't be an expert on everything; sharks are so different from dogs (though Rogério mentions a dogfish). I only learnt about the difference between the sharks when I started collecting them. 

Rogério wrote:

Now you need a megamouth shark!

I have one: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Rogério wrote:

Safari basking shark is 14 cm long, not so small but undoubtfully the CollectA model is a much nicer version.

I considered the Safari before the CollectA came out, but it's rather small. I could pretend it is a juvenile, but I fear it won't be too long before the STS community exposes me as a cheat. Fortunately, the CollectA is a better model too.

Of course you have a megamouth, I should have checked it once it is actually easy to find your figures through this topic. About the basking shark we are probably talking about one of the most serious shark sculpts among major brands. I haven't started my shark project yet but I am really tempted to get it. :)

Let’s turn to a few Safari Toob animals. A while ago, I bought three figures from the North American Wildlife toob (first released in 2006), a pronghorn, a bighorn ram and a mountain goat:
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It was fortunate that I could buy just the three animals from this toob that are in 1:32 scale. Let’s first have a look at the pronghorn and put it next to the K&M pronghorn introduced here before. In my opinion, the Safari looks quite awkward: Very minimal painting, head too large, legs too thick and small, body too fat. Hard to believe that this animal is one of the fastest runners on earth. The K&M is not perfect either, but it looks more athletic and therefore more pleasing to the eye.
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The Safari has a shoulder height of 3.0/96 cm and the K&M is 2.8/90 cm. Mitchell (1971) measured pronghorns in Alberta and found that males were 83-92 cm and females 80-91 cm. However, male pronghorns from Oregon and Nevada, measured by Mason (1952) were larger, with an average height of 94.6 cm and the largest (male) pronghorn being 104 cm at the shoulder.

The Safari bighorn ram’s proportions are generally better even though it has quite a large head as well. It’s not bad, but my other bighorn, a Colorata has better body proportions and more detailed painting.
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The Safari is 2.9/93 cm at the shoulder and the Colorata is 2.7/86 cm. The only real data I could find come from Valdez and Krausman (1999), who say that the height of males is 81-112 cm and females 76-91 cm.
 
Finally, we have the mountain goat, which I think is the most beautiful 1:32 figure in this Safari toob. Let’s compare it with the Starlux mountain goat, which is even better. Comparison with the Starlux shows that again, Safari has made the head too large and the legs too thick, but still, I believe the Safari is quite nice for a toob figure. It helps of course that a mountain goat requires minimal painting.
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The Safari is 3.1/99 cm at the shoulder and the Starlux is 2.9/93 cm. Côté and Festa-Bianchet (2003) found that the mean shoulder height of male mountain goats in Alberta was 96.3 cm and that of females was 91.2 cm. I imagine that the Safari is a male and the Starlux a female.
 
The Starlux mountain goat (from 1971) is one of my favourite Starlux. I haven’t introduced it properly in this topic yet, so let’s have a better look.
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I was actually quite surprised how small it was, as I thought it would be similar in size to the Starlux domestic goats. Clearly, Starlux didn’t care too much about relative sizes. It’s a good thing, because the Starlux domestic goats are too large for 1:32 scale.
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It fits much better with the Britains goats. Here it is with Britains early version of the Billy goat.
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Fantastic sealife shelf !!!
Here it certainly makes perfect sence that they are to scale

Your toob-goats (sheep ? )are very nice, - much nicer than the ones I have .
May be because they were made earlier.

TOOB figures are often like that, targeted to very young people and with a round design. I agree the K&M is nicer. It is interesting to see how different are the Safari and Colorata bighorns, especially the texture.
About the mountain goat, it is a beautiful little toob figure but it does not help when it is the Starlux the contender. Even if colors are simple, Starlux is very realistic even in this regard.

Wonderful goats, I love the Starlux model the most, he has so much detail and is so realistic!

Thanks everyone! The North American Toob was released quite a while ago, so it’s possible that the painting has somewhat improved (although it's is still very minimal).

Toob figures may generally be rounder and exaggerate the head, but it’s interesting that the toob mountain goat and bighorn ram are smaller copies of Safari’s regular-sized North America series (I don’t think the pronghorn is). I read that Rocky mountain goats are completely white, but they take on the colour of their environment when they lie on sand and rocks. So the Safari is a clean mountain goat and the Starlux is a dirty one.
 
Two more toob figures, a lion and a lioness from Safari ‘s recent South African Animals Toob. Both are quite disappointing, Safari definitely could have done better:
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The plastic looks and feels cheap, the sculpts are so-so (the lioness has a strange head and no fluffy tail, both are very thin) and the painting is very minimal (and the lion’s black and white eyes look odd).

You might say that the quality can’t be so high because Safari Toob animals are cheap, but are they? The cheapest I can find this toob in the UK is for £10.09, but I have to pay £9.74 postage (from the US), so with 9 figures in the toob, it works out as £2.20 per figure. Compare that to the Mojo Mini lion, which I can buy for only £1.50. I’d pay £1.50 postage, but if I get combined postage for 9 Mojo Minis, it works out cheaper and the Mojos are much higher quality.
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Mojo doesn’t make a mini lioness, so let’s compare the Safari with another toob type lioness, the K&M from 1998 (actually, I bought it as a Yujin, but it is marked K&M). Neither lioness is very realistic, but I find the K&M much more pleasant to look at. Sometimes it is hard to say why I like one figure more than another; In this case I think I prefer the K&M because it is not so thin, its head is better shaped and I like the stylised paint.
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I am rather fond of the K&M and I haven't shown it before, so let's see a few more photos:
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I shouldn’t complain too much about the Safaris, because any 1:32 scale animal is better than none and I enjoy collecting figures with different styles and from different periods. I suppose it’s more frustration that Safari didn’t put much care into these figures and wasted an opportunity to produce something good. I thought Safari was on the right track when I bought their Pelagic Fish and their Dolphins Toobs, but it appears that the quality of their toobs is very variable.
 
What about their sizes? The Safari lioness has a shoulder height of 3.0/96 cm. The mane hides the Safari lion’s shoulder, but his hip height is 3.4/109 cm. The Mojo has a shoulder height of 3.0/96 cm (without mane) and the K&M is 2.9/93 cm. Meinertzhagen (1938) measured 5 lionesses and found that they ranged between 86 and 102 cm at the shoulder, so both the Safari and K&M are fine for 1:32 scale. Meinertzhagen found that the male lions he measured ranged between 81 and 107 cm, but the lions measured by Ferreira and Funston (2010) were much larger and ranged between 97 and 118 cm at the shoulder. Both the Safari and Mojo lions can be considered 1:32 scale, even though they are quite different in size.

Safari TOOBs quality is really too much variable. I even suspect they come from different factories. Do you still have the tube, can you see which factory is on it and I compare with my Great Lakes TOOB that is a very good quality one? You'll probably find the name of the city.
If you put rosets in your lioness, it will surely work better as a leopard. I don't know why these tubes of most iconic and easy to sell animals are often with a poorer quality, it is not only with Safari, Wild Republic is the same. I think the male lion has some dignity but Safari surely can be better.

No, I don't have the toob. Sandspielfiguren sold the lion and lioness separately, so I didn't have to buy the whole toob.

Another toob, this time a high quality one. CollectA shows how it can be done! Four animals in the CollectA “Mini Wild Animals” box are 1:32 scale. Most of them are bears, but let’s start with the only one that isn’t, the gorilla:
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OK, it doesn’t need much paint, so I guess CollectA couldn’t do much wrong, but the eyes are in the right place and it has some silvery grey on its back. As with all these figures, it is a smaller copy of a model from the regular-sized CollectA series, so the sculpt is good too. Its head+body length is 3.4/109 cm and its rump length is 2.7/86 cm. Beuer and colleagues (2007) measured the rump length of 17 male silverback Western gorillas and found that there rump length was 85.3–97.2cm. Here he is with the Yowies and Britains gorillas:
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Next, the brown bear:
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It’s a beautiful, well-sculpted model, but I am not sure whether it works so well in 1:32 scale. Because its head is small relative to its body, it gives the impression that it is a very large brown bear, but it has a shoulder height of only 3.0/96 cm and a head+body length of 5.2/166 cm. Certainly within 1:32 scale, as Hilderbrand and colleagues (2018) found that female brown bears in Alaska ranged between about 150 and 210 in body length, but clearly not a very large bear, because males were between about 175 and 235 cm.

I suppose I always have something to complain about: if the head isn’t too large, then it’s too small. But it looks different from my other brown bears, which have a relatively larger head. Compare with this Eikoh bear:
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Or is the Eikoh’s head too large?

The box also contains an American black bear. It’s one that I am particularly fond of, because it is my only unambiguous American black bear.
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I have quite a few other black bears, but they are all Asian (plus one from Hausser Elastolin, but it isn’t clear whether it is American and it is brown). Here is the CollectA with the Kaiyodo Capsule Q Asian black bear, another one I like. 
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The CollectA is 2.6/83 cm at the shoulder and 4.4/141 cm in straight head+body length. That’s a fairly small black bear; for example, Bartareau and colleagues (2012) found that black bear’s total body length was between about 135 and 215 cm (although this was measured “over the curves”). The Kaiyodo is a bit larger with 2.9/93 cm shoulder height and 5.1/163 cm head+body length. Fine for a generic Asian black bear, but actually too large for the Japanese subspecies.

Finally, a giant panda. It has more paint than the others so we can see that CollectA took the painting seriously.
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The panda has a shoulder height of 2.2/70 cm and a head+body length of 4.3/138 cm. Given that it is such a well-known species, it is surprising that there don’t seem to be any published scientific data about its size. Wikipedia says that adults are 1.2 to 1.9 metres long, including a tail of about 10–15 cm, and are 60 to 90 cm tall at the shoulder, so the CollectA is good as a smaller, probably female, giant panda. Here she is compared with the Kaiyodo Unique Animal Zoo and Colorata Ueno Zoo pandas, which are close to a panda’s maximum (male) size.
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For most collectors, this CollectA box is probably not of much interest, because it only contains very common species (it also has an African buffalo, elephant, lion, giraffe, hippo, tiger, white rhino and zebra). I wish CollectA made a few boxes with less common species. Their Mini Wild Animals box is about the same price as the Safari toobs, but the quality is higher and it contains more animals, so I’d think that CollectA boxes with less common animals would sell well.

By the way, how should CollectA be pronounced? As “collector” or as “collect” followed by the letter “A”?

Cheetahs are one of my favourite animals and recently, a few new ones arrived from France. I had been trying to find a Clairet cheetah for a while, because I like the sculpt a lot. They are hard to find, so I was very happy that Alain/Caracal sent me one . A few weeks later, Alain said the one he’d sent wasn’t good enough, so he sent me another one . So I am now a very happy owner of two Clairet cheetahs . They both look great to me!

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As far as I know, it’s the only vintage 1:32 scale cheetah. Starlux and Hausser Elastolin also made cheetahs, but they aren’t 1:32 scale and they aren’t sculpted as well as the Clairet. The Clairet was made from 1952 or 1953 until the 1980s. In the past, spots were painted by putting a mould over the figure and then spray painting it, rather than stamping the spots onto the figure as companies nowadays usually do. As a result, vintage companies couldn’t paint very small spots and because the moulds often didn’t fit perfectly, they tend to be a bit blurred. Alain suggested that I repainted one of them, but I am sure I will mess it up, and I prefer the original vintage look. I like the slender body and well-sculpted head of this figure.
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They have a shoulder height of 2.7/86 cm and a head and body length of 4.4/141 cm. I recently found a great article with cheetah body measurements by Meachen and colleagues in ZooBiology (2019). They conducted 38 body measurements of over 700 cheetahs, which can be downloaded from  [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I was happy to see that these researchers were even more obsessed with taking measurements than I am! To summarise, the head and body length of adults over 48 months was 105-152 cm, the foreleg length was 62-89 cm and hind leg length 62.5-90 cm (excluding a few weird outliers). The Clairets have been admitted to the 1:32 Wildlife Reserve!
 
I got another cheetah from Christophe/Kikimalou, a Play Visions. Very different from the Clairets, but nice too.
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It’s allowed into the 1:32 Wildlife Reserve, but only just. With a 4.6/147 cm head+body length and 2.8/90 cm shoulder height it is as large as a cheetah can ever be.
 
I have another Play Visions in a different colour. This one was actually sold under the name Yujin in Japan, but I think Play Visions also sold it in this colour.
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Same sculpt, but the colour makes them look very different, so good to have both versions.
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Also two Bandaïs, an adult and a cub from their World Natural Animals Africa series. The adult is rather fat for a cheetah, but it is more typical in size than many of my other cheetahs, most of which are very large. It has a hip height of 2.4/77 cm and a head+body length of 4.1/131 cm.
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The cub is extremely cute and is incredibly detailed given how small it is. It doesn’t have the fluffy fur typical of cheetah cubs; perhaps it has already lost it.
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Here we have the Yowie cheetah I got from Kelly/Pipxlch, which I introduced earlier in this topic. It is another example of a more typically sized cheetah, with the same body length as the adult Bandaï.
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One cheap cheetah that I bought in a large bulk box from a local discount store. The sculpt isn’t too bad, but it is let down by its painting. There were four in the box; if I find some time, I may try to repaint one. Hip height is 2.5/80 cm and length is 4.1/131 cm.
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Another cheaper kind of cheetah was made for the Zoorasia zoo in Yokohama, but this one looks quite pleasant. It is made of harder kind of rubbery material, similar to the Bandaïs.
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It has a somewhat unnatural hump on its shoulder, so a bit unfair to measure it there; hip height is 2.7/86 cm and length 4.4/141 cm.
 
Although their colour isn’t entirely realistic, I like my brightly coloured cheetahs.
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And another darker coloured family:
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With the new measurements from the Meachen article, let’s reconsider the Mojö Mini that I showed a while back. It is 2.8/90 cm at the shoulder and has a 5.0/160 cm head+body length. I can accept that it is 0.3 mm too tall, but it is also 2.5 mm too long. It may not be much, but if we aren’t strict, then there will be mayhem in the 1:32 Reserve.
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Finally, let’s turn to two of the top models in my collection, the stunning Kaiyodo “Amazing Animals” cheetahs. Kaiyodo made two versions: a regularly spotted cheetah and a king cheetah.
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I love running animal figures, I am very fond of cheetahs and I like the Kaiyodo style, so they are the perfect models for me.
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Are they 1:32 scale? Their shoulder height is 2.9/93 cm. That’s slightly too large, but Meachen et al. (2019) took leg measurements “while the legs were positioned as if the cheetah was taking a normal step”. Because the Kaiyodos are running, the front leg may be stretched out more, so I can give them the benefit of doubt. In any case, their head and body length (4.5/144 cm) is within 1:32 scale.
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Together with a few other runners, a Breyer thoroughbred and the Britains black rhino:
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Those Kaiyodo cheetahs are wonderful, I love the pose and their paintwork is beautifully detailed!

Somehow missed the previous post, too, with the CollectA tube set - they're really nice, and the sculpts seem to have done better in the miniaturising than the horses (which got longer legs and much bigger feet in the rescaling!)

rogerpgvg wrote:

By the way, how should CollectA be pronounced? As “collector” or as “collect” followed by the letter “A”?

I pronounce it Collect-uh, which is exactly how I'd say 'collector' in my accent - but maybe if you're from somewhere which gets all the way to the ends of words without lopping letters off, it wouldn't sound the same!

George wrote:

Somehow missed the previous post, too, with the CollectA tube set - they're really nice, and the sculpts seem to have done better in the miniaturising than the horses (which got longer legs and much bigger feet in the rescaling!)

Yes, I noticed that the figures in the farm animals box look less good.

George wrote:

I pronounce it Collect-uh, which is exactly how I'd say 'collector' in my accent - but maybe if you're from somewhere which gets all the way to the ends of words without lopping letters off, it wouldn't sound the same! 

Thanks. I thought the company might want us to pronounce it as Collect "A", with the "A" suggesting that it is an A class brand, but they probably deliberately left it ambiguous.

Beautiful cheetahs, hurray for Alain for the two Clairet models, they're wonderful!
And I absolutely love the little Bandai cub, such a sweet face, with a natural cuteness that isn't too exaggerated! And the Kaiyodo are stunning, so elegant and in that classic running pose!
I say it as in 'Collector', but I'm not really sure if there is a specific way of saying it- a bit like the ambiguity of pronouncing Schleich!

Thanks, Lillias. I think I'll follow your and George's advice and pronounce it as "collector".

It can often be difficult to work out the size of figures from photos. Some sellers (especially Japanese) are helpful by showing a ruler, and when there is a Lego block on TAW, it’s usually fairly easy to work out the size too, although the angle of the lens can do tricks. But sometimes it’s much more difficult, for example with this Kaiyodo Higashiyama Zoo snow leopard.

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I had to work it out from the Higashiyama Aardvark, which I saw in a photo with a figure I knew the size of. The Aardvark has the same base (I think, but the size may be different?), and so I could work out the size of the snow leopard. My calculations actually suggested that it was too large, but I liked the figure, so I decided to buy it anyway. But to my surprise, it is 1:32 scale! I still find it hard to believe. Usually, when I try my luck it isn’t the right scale. 
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I am particularly pleased to have found a 1:32 scale snow leopard, because it is my only one. And it is a very beautiful figure too, as you might expect from Kaiyodo. I like cheetahs, but I like snow leopards too. I like all cats, but unfortunately, they are hard to find in my scale, except for lions and tigers.

The snow leopard has a head and body length of 4.0/128 cm. For size information, scientific articles usually refer to Hemmer (1972, Mammalian Species), who refers to older literature that I can’t get hold of. He says that the length is 1.0-1.3 m, and shoulder height about 0.6 m. Encyclopedia of Life gives a mean length of 1146.57, which is similar.

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I don’t have another 1:32 scale snow leopard to compare it to, so let’s snow it with the Kaiyodo cheetah. Two fantastic models together!

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