Animals can adapt to their environment in many different ways, resulting in many interesting species. but the more interesting case is when two distinctly different species, not even closely related, evolve similar or the same adaptation, known as convergent evolution. Such is the example whit this review: Thylacosmilus, which may look like a sabre toothed cat, but is in fact a sprassodont, a marsupial from South America. Despite it’s look and fascinating build, only Geoworld has produced a mass market version of this species. Does it measure up? Let’s see….
Once more, I inspect the fact card that comes with Geoworld, looking for cases of plagiarism. Here though, it’s an airbrushed version of the figure, so we shall move swiftly on.
To the figure! This one measures 6.5″ long and 2.5″ high, at a 1:12 scale, quite large, as Thylacosmilus was half the size of Smilodon, so this won’t scale well with most other lines (not that Thylacosmilus or Smilodon ever encountered each other). The colour is a mix of yellows and browns, similar to some lion species and often used for Smilodon. The pose is of it roaring, demonstrating it’s ability to open it’s jaws very wide. Not the best, but works well enough.
Now to accuracy, and this is pretty decent. The head sculpt is spot on, including the organic ‘sheaths’ that it’s sabre teeth slot into. The teeth are also well sculpted, quite accurate. The body is accurate, if a little too cat like, but at least getting the proportions very close. There are issues, aside from the overly cat like look, the main one being the teeth, which seems to based on Smilodon, not being curved or splayed as much as it should be. Not horrendous, but could be better.
While this may not be a great representation of Thylacosmilus, it is a mass produced figure that hits quite a few good spots and, for a decent price, is actually worth a pick up. If you can find it a decent price (not always easy, as it can be hard to track down), pick it up, it’s a good fun figure.
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I like this figure a lot, it’s is one of the few mammals from the series that I got.
CollectA or Safari really need to give us one!
Good review. This is one critter I would love for CollectA, EoFauna, or Safari to tackle in the future.