Unusual Animals by Allison Strine – Buffalo – 500 pieces

This was absolutely my kind of puzzle image – bright colors, collage, interesting artwork, informative, great quality – it had it all!

Do you ever have a puzzle that you know you’re going to love? Before you even put two pieces together you know it’s gonna be great? This was one of those puzzles! It was as fun and beautiful as I knew it would be – isn’t it fantastic when that happens? 💖

Excellent quality, as per usual for Buffalo. Lately I’ve mostly been purchasing Ravensburger and Buffalo puzzles; I’m too cranky these days to deal with crappy quality. I know when I buy a Buffalo puzzle that they care about whether or not their puzzles are entertaining and well made, and it is most definitely appreciated.

The color of both the background and the spider jumped out at me while sorting, and this was the first section I assembled. I wouldn’t want a Black Widow spider anywhere near me in the real world, but don’t mind at all it showing up next to all the other unusual animals. 🕸

I love all the information provided for each animal. Who has heard of an axolotl before? If you check out some images online you’ll see that they have the cutest faces (but they’re not brightly colored at all). Very unusual indeed.

This one I’ve definitely heard of before – there’s a whole family story about this bird – and we talk about the Blue-Footed Booby when we think something going on is ridiculous, or a waste of time.

When I was young (probably around 10 or so) my father was watching a documentary on tv about this bird, and he made me and my sisters come downstairs and watch it with him. We absolutely did not want to. Mom and dad had a “discussion” about forcing us to watch it; dad said it was educational so we should “learn something” and mom said it was stupid to make us watch it if we didn’t want to.

I don’t really remember any actual information about this bird, just the situation of being made to watch a documentary we weren’t interested in – and of course the bird’s ridiculous sounding name. It’s funny what memories stick with you, isn’t it?

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The artwork by Allison Strine was excellent for puzzling, and both interesting and educational. If there are more of her puzzles out there anything like this one – I want them.

If you see this puzzle out in the wild, and you’re so inclined, I highly recommend adopting it and bringing it home. I don’t regret it, and in fact loved every single piece. 💝