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Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Our Realistic, Life-size Latex and Foam Rubber Animals are Back!




Our realistic latex-covered foam rubber animals are always popular! Unfortubately, our supplier gets them in stock only once a year, and these puppies have been delayed for several months! Worse, we ran out long before that, so we and our customers are very, very excited to see them again!

Click on any animal to see it and order!

http://store.tapirback.com/giant-anaconda-foam-filled-latex-rubber-snake-f3405/



Is that weird?


Our armadillo is always popular, too, whether you are from Texas or anywhere else. It's life-size, and it almost looks real! See our armadillo here along with all of our foam and latex animals!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

We Needed an Aardvark

Buy this toy aardvark at Tapir and Friends

It's been awhile since Tapir and Friends had a plastic aardvark figurine. We used to have several, and they were all discontinued. Aardvarks are such interesting and unusual animals that they are always popular with our customers, so when we got a request recently, we did a little research and found that a new one had been produced by Safari, Ltd. We love its realism, and at 5 inches long, it can easily serve as a toy, a cake topper, a unique gift, or become part of a diorama on South African wildlife. Aardvarks use their strong claws and feet to burrow into the earth looking for ants and termites and for digging holes to live in. Their name in Afrikaans means "earth pig," which I've always thought was pretty cool :-)  

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

A Plastic Crab for Summer Parties


Everybody loves sea life for summer parties and decorating. Our red-orange crab with the chevron stripes is back in stock and ready to ship! Take a look!


This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Amebelodon Magic: A Custom-made Herd of Bizarre Extinct Animals


We make custom animals!

(Even ones as strange as Amebelodon)

Some might call it an Amebelodon nightmare, but we think it's pretty darn cool. This herd of small resin Amebelodons created by wildlife artist Sergio Sandoval is part of a project we put together for The Prairie Museum of Art and History in Colby, Kansas. They needed replicas to sell in their store when their Amebelodon fossil jaw bone went on display. The bad news was that they couldn't find any. The good news was that we could make them.


Amebelodons were very weird looking extinct members of the elephant family. They were proboscideans called gomphotheres. You can see why they earned the nickname "shovel-tuskers." 


Even from the back, these animals look pretty unreal. So, how did Sergio make them?


He started by researching online. It seems there are quite a few ways these creatures have been portrayed (check out the image page on Google), and actually, who knows what the fleshy parts such as the end of the trunk really looked like?


So Sergio began to study the anatomy by making drawings . . .


. . . and clay models . . .


. . . and comparing the extinct animals with modern elephants . . .


. . . and probably dreaming about them as well.


The proportions kept getting better . . .


. . . until a miniature Amebelodon sculpture stood in his studio.


Next, the model had to be baked and several hundred pieces had to be cast.


As the paint went on, they started to look real.


Final colors were chosen. Amebelodons are often depicted in their North American Miocene settings standing on dry grass. You would have to time-travel about 9 million years back in prehistory to see one, so we are thrilled to have been able to bring some of that reality to museum visitors.


But the work was not over. Painting the entire herd would still be a long process!

Soon you will be able to find this delightful four-inch Amabelodon sculpture in our store. Meanwhile, enjoy the amazing animal replicas we have for you every day, and if you need an animal made to order, please call Sheryl at (503) 338-8646 or e-mail oregontapir@yahoo.com.


This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Fast Shipping to Australia


Two of our favorite summer fun plastic animals made it to Australia quickly, eliciting this very nice e-mail from one happy customer:

Hi Tapir,

Thank you for your very efficient service! The package you posted on 10th June was delivered to me (in Australia) today, the 18th June!!

Many thanks.

RPM

Wow! We can't guarantee arrival that fast to every country every time, but we do our best to make the experience as seamless and pleasant as we can. We ahip quickly, and the arrival time depends on the speed of the mail and how fast it goes through customs in your country. We do everything we can on our end to streamline the process, because we love our overseas customers and hope you will keep coming back!




This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Happy Customers: Corrine

European Rabbit Figurine

It's always wonderful to have people remind us why we do what we do. This e-mail from Corrine did just that. The reference to choosing something else is because Corrine's daughter REALLY wanted a plastic wombat that was, sadly, discontinued. The rabbit above was part of a previous order that now lives happily in their home. Corinne wrote:


Hi Sheryl:

All your products are wonderful!
We’ll just choose some different ones.
We love going to your website.

We’re happy customers and it’s obvious you care for your customers.
Thanks for being a place where children can buy clean, happy toys! 


Thank you, Corrine! Your letter made me smile!

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Need a colorful plastic bird for your Galapagos diorama?

 Plastic Frigatebird

Something of a bully, a frigatebird is a kleptoparasite and steals food from other birds (we really only told you that because we wanted to use the word "kleptoparasite" in a sentence). The odds for other seabirds are evened somewhat by the fact that pirate birds waddle when they walk, don't swim, and are incapable of achieving lift-off from a flat surface. They can, however, stay in the air for a week. Pretty amazing. 

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.