Fossil turtles, aside from Archelon, are extremely rare in toy form. There have been many different, interesting species over the millennia. Enter Yowie to set the record straight! And with quite the species too, with what they call Owen’s Horned Turtle. But this is no average turtle, this is Ninjemys, Owen’s Ninja Turtle! Yes, this rediscovered species was named after the ninja turtles (TURTLE POWER!!). Okay, obligatory pop culture reference aside, this was a large land tortoise, weighing 200kg and measuring 1.5m high. Let’s see how Yowie did!
On to the figure! It’s quite a defensive pose, akin to an ankylosaur with the clubbed tail. For a turtle, pretty dynamic, especially since it still gives off the appearance of being a heavy land animal (which it was). There is some wiggle to the tail, head and legs, but not enough to alter the pose greatly. The colouration is quite natural, a mix of greys and brown. The only oddity is the orange on it’s horns. Likely to be more eye catching for kids, but is a bit odd. It is small, measuring 2.7″ long and 1″ high, not bad at all.
Now to accuracy! With only the head and tail to work with, this is a tricky one, but given it’s similarity to the species Meiolania, the rest of the specimen can be speculated. The tail is decent, if a little too club like, as opposed to the Glyptodon style rings it should have, but it is passible. The shell is similar to Meiolania, though a touch more stylised, but you can’t argue with nicely done artist interpretation. The head is pretty close, but the horns should be sticking out from the head horizontally, as opposed to up, making it look too much like Meiolania. Still, not horrible, all things considered.
Whether you want it as Ninjemys or Meiolania, it is a really nice little model from a group that rarely gets represented. This is the only model of the species that exists (a familiar occurrence with Yowie models), so choices aren’t huge. If you want it, eBay is the best choice, as this model is long discontinued, but I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than something a bit different. Grab it, and have a shell raising time!
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This animal looks like the epitome of classic “prehistoric” aesthetics. We definitely should have more figures of this!
I’d totally buy a toy of this genus from CollectA or Safari or even Schleich.