Desert Tortoise Realistic Wildlife Plush, 6"

How do you even begin to review an item like this. It will be tough...but let me start with a small yarn about how important a realistic desert tortoise can be in the life of a small child.My daughter had one of these....and we went to see Toy Story 3...if anyone has seen it...you know that it is about lost toys. Well long story short...after seeing the movie she hid the original Plush Desert Tortoise and said it was lost. Immediately we hopped to the wonders of the internet and found a replacement....hoping that we could beat the hell out of it so it looked loved to the point where she wouldn't notice the difference. We told her that "Baby Turtie" that is his name, went on a vacation to visit his cousin in Arizona. He was getting some plastic surgery done...like the people on TV...and when he returned he would look amazing and brand new....this of course would be the case if we decided not to beat the heck out of him before handing him over to our daughter....we do have hearts you know:) And violently beating and distressing a realistic animal like this can have serious psychological effects on the mind...not something you want to diddle around with!A day or so passed and guess who magically seemed to reappear...none other then Baby Turtie. We asked our daughter if she hid turtie because of the movie...and she just shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know what we were talking about. But we knew...we were duped into buying a new turtie. And yes....I know that I am spelling it turtie...that is what our daughter calls turtles. Turties.So the new one shows up...and now we have two incredible PLUSH desert tortoises.On to the actual review....again...what else can you say about a toy so magical and charming. It is brown and tan...it has some beans in its plastron...thats the bottom of the shell for all of you non herpetologists out there...it smells kind of like incense...must be from the store it came from....and it is PLUSH. And REAL! IT is so real in fact that sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night to check on my daughter and I go look in her room and think that turtles have come up through the vents and crawled into bed with her. Then I realize that it is just Baby Turtie and his Cousin Matt...that is the new ones name by the way...Matt. WTF...right?My only complaints about the toy are that it is slightly anatomically incorrect. The toes are a little off to be calling this thing "realistic"! And it seems to be missing its mouth...how is it supposed to eat with out a mouth...we are still trying to figure this out. The beans in the stomach are a little strange too...I have handled many a tortoise in my day...but have never experienced one with beans in its stomach.My last complaint is that the eyes are a bit lifeless. Just black beads of emptiness and despair...almost as if the tortoise is longing to be else where...instead of in my daughters arms or bed amongst all of her other stuffed animals. I wish that his eyes expressed a mad sense of love, trust and reliability. I worry sometimes that my daughter will look longingly into this plush, realistic tortoise's eyes and feel that when she grows up and meets a man...that he should also have black orbs of emptiness...as if he is a demon...or a great white shark...or made internally of coal. Perhaps I am reading too far into this...she is only 2.5...so I feel that in the future perhaps we will provide her with toys that do say more with the eyes.Overall...this Realistic "kind of" and Plush...that it is...desert tortoise...will make a great, semi anatomically correct addition to anyones stuffed animal collection. I recommend that you buy one NOW...and if you are going to see Toy Story 3...buy two...or three or eleven...depending on how influenced your children are by the messages of popular 3-D culture and talking animals and toys.Hope this review helped!Sincerely,Ronald MacNemeyer Jr. Esq.

I got this for my daughter's school project. She loves ut.