April 7, 2024

The box back pictures have arrived online for the Wiltopia Australia theme sets coming later this year. It's a great theme with a number of new molds and soem classic recolors.

Set 71623 is ocean themed, with a glass bottom boat and a bunch of sea life. No new molds for this set, just some nice recolors.

Set 71624 has kangaroos, koalas and two new molds - a platypus and a frilled lizard. It also has a repaint of the kingfisher to a kookaburra.

It looks like the kangaroo joey and one of the koalas are probably re-releases from earlier Wiltopia sets. The platypus shows two that may be the same from different angles or might be two different molds. We won't know until it arrives in person or the instructions with part numbers come out.

Set 71625 has wombats and a recolor of the cockatoo

There are three wombats in the set and it's again hard to tell if they are meant to all be the same or might be slightly different colors. The set also includes small cubes to represent wombat dung in it's unique shape.

Set 71627 has two spiders in it, clearly meant to represent the redbacked spider with the small one, and a funnel-web spider with the big one.

There is no set 71626 known yet, and the series is missing any land vehicles like you would typically see in a theme. No images are available for that number, and it hasn't been listed at Amclicks with the other expected sets. Possibly there was a production problem and the set was dropped from release. This has happened before.

Only three new animal molds in the series, but it's still a great addition to the Wiltopia lineup. The focus on making existing molds look like specific species is great and the choices for the new animals is perfect. It's great to see another well done biome theme like the Amazon theme. Even the North American single set was well done and thoughtful. Too bad that one has neven been made available in actual North America.

Hopefully there will be a few more biome themed Wiltopia series in the future. I would love to see an Asian highlands theme with yak and snow leopard as new molds and returns of the red panda and other existing molds in new variation. Hopefully these biome focused sets do well and sales will support further exploration.

I have lots of new sets on the way, including the first wave of Horses of Waterfall sets finally. This year's mermaid theme is only a couple of months away, and the dinosaurs following along after that. Total known releases for 2024 have it currently in third place for biggest year for animals ever, just behind the last two years. All the new plastic types and focus on animal themes has really pumped the numbers up lately.

Thanks for reading - Tiermann

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