Sabre-Toothed Cats (Playmobil)

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For ages, the sabre-toothed cats have been the top predators in their ecosystem. But now humans have appeared on the scene, and what they lack in brute strength, they make up for in cunning and intelligence!

Rounding out Playmobil’s prehistoric megafauna is this the menacing pair of sabre-tooths, clearly belonging to the Smilodon genus. Each measures just under 10 cm long and is coloured orange with black eyes and nose and white teeth. Their bodies are built sleek and stocky and their physical features and proportions appear to be accurate.

The kitties are articulated at the neck, shoulders, and hips. Like the previous Playmobil beasts I reviewed, their bodies are mostly smooth, but they do feature bits of sculpted fur on the heads, shoulders, limbs, and tails. Their mouths are wide open and their eyes are narrowed. These toys may be aimed primarily at young children, but they do not look cute and friendly!

And here are the brave human hunters, whom I have named Raul and Julius. As you can see, they appear to be of different ethnicity from from the humans that came with the cave bear set. Perhaps that one takes place in Europe while this one is occurring somewhere in the Americas. Their clothing consists of animal skins in different shades of brown and Raul proudly sports a headdress fashioned from an ungulate skull. Their spear and axe have business ends made of bone instead of stone. Julius is wielding an even scarier and deadlier weapon: a flaming branch.

The sabre-tooths’ lair consists of a rocky alcove with a live fern and a dead tree sprouting from the top and an assortment of bones for decoration. The broken femur bone can be inserted into a sabre-tooth’s mouth as if it were gnawing on the morsel, but given how fragile those big teeth were, it’s unlikely that the real animal would risk such an activity.

Though small, this is my favourite out of the three Playmobil Stone Age sets that I own. Two very good sabre-toothed cats and two very good early human figures for them to battle. A great introductory set.

And that really does wrap up my Playmobil reviews, at least for now. As with Dinosaurs, I hope this theme gets revisited eventually. A woolly rhino or a giant ground sloth would be sweet. In the mean time, you can still find a few prehistoric sets for sale at Playmobil.ca., and Amazon.com here.