December 4, 2022

Last big update for the year this weekend. My big box from Daniela arrived with the sets I had been getting in Germany over the last year. These include sets from 2021 that never made it to the USA as well as magazines and other exclusives. It also included some part orders with more animals in them I was able to get outside of the original sets.

First up two I found part numbers for but didn't know for certain what they were.

A yellow plain butterfly ETN 30 23 8803 it is listed as originating in 2003 at PlaymoDB and seems to be the base butterfly the printing is done on for the yellow color.

As it's not known from any sets in this form I am listing it as butterfly 0

Also found by part number and since tracked down is this snail toy in magenta ETN 30 03 8044

It turned out to be from one of the German store exclusives, Baby Room set 70862

The next new addition comes from 70659 the Fairy Boat with the two new colored sea turtles. It also had this pheasant with a new part number 30 66 3274 and has a lighter tan wing piece

The sea turtles from that set

The 123 Advent Calendar 70259 from 2021 turns out to have a new animal in it as well. The bull in brown with a new spot pattern on it

The most animal intensive Advent Calendar from 2021 that never made it to the US is 70777 Mermaids. It has a number of new variants that had been noticed in photos as well as some new ones not noticed until the instruction sheet was in my hand. All the new ones are:

New color of pink coral 30 03 3034

dolphin baby 30 66 5954

Seahorse in a new shade of lavender 30 24 8883

Orange sea turtle 30 66 5974

Spadefish in a different shade of purple 30 63 6627

Starfish in new brighter yellow 30 03 3004

blue stingray 30 63 6617

All others were repeats from previous sets, though it's worth noting the giant seahorses have only been seen once before in 5028 a German exclusive.

The purple one is 30 63 0454 and the green 30 63 0414 seen here compared to more common versions. Very slight color variations. The only one from 5028 that hasn't made an appearance elsewhere yet is the pink one.

From parts I received the cow from Asterix 70961 and it turns out to be a new version. The body is a single molded piece. The previous version 2 cows that look the same have the spots molded on, and even when done in the same color show lines where the spots would have been. This cow is a solid body with no spot lines - so a new mold for cows.

Compare to the same color version 2 cow where the spot lines are visible particularly the center top of the back

So the new cow is listed as cow type 3

Other animals from the Asterix series not available in the US

The final animal from Wiltopia Amazon 2022 to be added is the jaguar

It has the same paint pattern as the previously released leopard but a more tan rather than yellow body. It's on the far right below with the earliest version on the far left.

It's clear Playmobil isn't differentiating between the spot patterns on leopards and jaguars. The Wiltopia one comes with a collector card listing jaguar so it will definitively be that on Animobil. The oldest version really looks like a leopard, though it came first from a South American set in the original Jungle series. We know Jungle series was South American or Caribbean since it included toucans. The same cat was used in African sets as a leopard later. We know the more yellow nearly identical version to the current Wiltopia Jaguar was a leopard because it was in bag set 6940 with a Savannah scene in the background including an acacia tree only found in Africa. Messy from a taxonomic perspective but we will just have to live with it.

Many other new additions this month I will show here.

From 123 and 123 Aqua

From the Playmobil Magazines by publisher Blue Ocean

Animals from other German store exclusive sets

lavender rabbit laying, no body paint 30 63 9637

lavender rabbit sitting, no body paint 30 63 9617

The blue velociraptor is 30 66 7854

Thanks to Lucien in France for sending me the blue and tan wyvern! ETN body 30 66 7924 and wings 30 66 8924

Animals from general released sets picked up through parts or sets I have purchased in the US in the last month

All of these are on the website in appropriate places and can be found by scrolling through the 2022 section on the  By Year list.

With the new finds in the latest batch 2021 had a total of 112 new animals. That was the most new animal variants in a single year ever. A record that didn't last a year, since 2022 is now at 190 new variants found. This is in large part due to the Wiltopia rerelease of such a large part of the animal back catalog in slightly different plastic and with sometimes all new painting. I won't consider 2022 finished up until we have seen the instructions for the remaining sets. I am pretty sure Ayuma has some new songbirds yet to be added, and there is a possibility of a new baby giraffe in the zoo set 71190. There may also be unexpected new variants in Novelmore Sands theme.

There may be one more small update coming with one or two animals from my most recent set order. That should be it for 2022 image additions though. Next major update to Animobil will be when the 2023 sets show up on the company websites and we can confirm what is coming first half of next year. A small Robots update is coming as well with the latest photos, but only a handful.

Thanks as always for reading - and have a great winter holiday season - Tiermann

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