This puzzle was tricky. A lot trickier than I thought it would be. The pale sky blue jumped out visually among scattered pieces on the table, so I tried to assemble those first, thinking it would give me some outline for the rest of the picture. Not really. Not only because the sky is bits and pieces among the foliage and animals- gaps of sky appear here and there anywhere in the picture- but also because (this is the ‘surprise’), the whole image isn’t shown on the box. The middle is blank so that you only find out what the entire picture is by completing it. And not only that, but the parts of the image that are shown on the box- front and back- are different from each other. Some large elements like the tiger and monkey, are in the same places, but smaller things like certain flowers, butterflies and birds, are in different locations. And when I finally got the puzzle all put together, those elements were not in the same spots as in either picture! So fairly soon I gave up looking at the partial pictures on the box at all, and just worked it blind. Which was painstakingly slow. An engaging challenge, though!
I was not very impressed with the quality of the puzzle itself. The pieces felt very thin and flimsy- which was my opinion of another puzzle by the same brand before. So once again, only the intrigue of a good picture (or interesting challenge in this case) made me want to get the puzzle, and this is one I won’t be keeping (already promised it in a swap to someone).
The additional animals in the picture include an orchid mantis, hoopoe bird, toucan, another bird that looks like a sparrow, two beetles, a green preying mantis, a second monkey and several butterflies). Just in case someone wants to do this puzzle and not have the surprise spoiled, I have put the slideshow of progress shots on an individual page
Final size 20 x 27″.
