BEAST
WARS: TOY REVIEW 
Appearance wise, he’s a strange amalgamation of a killed whale (most of the top of his body is somewhat killer whale like) elephant (he has vaguely elephant-like skin, ‘ears’ and has some nasty tusks). The rest of his body is hard to identify; his legs/feet belong to neither a killer whale (which doesn’t have legs) nor an elephant (who has much thicker legs and no big-whopping claws on the feet). That’s right, this creature has massive claws on his feet. Perhaps to give him more stability, but probably in a very vain attempt to make him look ‘cool’.
Robot mode kibble is almost non-existent, unless you turn him upside down (in which case you can see it all baby!). His articulation is ok; you can move his tail, and his jaw (somewhat) and he has a combined 10 points of articulation in his legs. His only major gimmick is that if you pull his fin-section back it makes his tusks open and close.
Like all Fuzors, Torca is simply ugly as all hell in this
mode. Ugly as all HELL.
Turn the toy over and pull open his sides, revealing most of the robot crap. Pull both halves of his hips out of his armpits, and then click them together as a not-to-stable crotch area. You can then straighten his legs and pull his back toe out of the bottom of his foot. Pull the beast mouth down to show Torca’s face (kinda cool, huh?), and then readjust his arms so that his fists are visible.
The final thing to do is to split his beast head in two
and arrange the two halves as shoulder pads. Done and done.
The main things wrong with this robot mode are to do with stability. Due to the design of the hips his groin always keeps popping apart. This is incredibly annoying, and makes me wonder why they keep making TFs with pop-apart hips, because they ALWAYS pop apart when they’re posed. The thickness of his thighs also makes it a little hard to get some poses done.
Torca’s gun is his fin assembly. The result is a fairly
crappy gun. Again for Torca they’ve attempted to give a Beast Wars toy
a water pistol. As with Cheetor, Tigatron and most of the other BW water
pistols (Quickstrike springs to mind among Fuzors) it’s not very good.
Fire one squirt of water and boom… you have to go and refill it. Pretty
pathetic really. Turn the gun around in his hand and a little jet-port
of the back of it can form the barrel of the gun. This looks a lot better
than the water pistol version.
You can’t expect much at all from a Fuzor, and Torca really delivers it. His resemblance to Bruton adds a + if you care about those things, but aside from that, he’s just a D toy. You really don’t need to worry about buying him, but he displays okay.
Widely distributed whale of the family Delphinidae. Found in all seas including the Arctic and Antarctic. The largest of all dolphins, it attains a maximum length of 9.5 metres; the female is usually much smaller. The killer whale, also known as Grampus, is usually black with white on the underparts, above each eye and on each flank. The snout is blunt and the jaws are equipped with 40 to 50 large, conical teeth. The flippers are rounded and the dorsal fin is triangular. Fin, flippers and tail flukes grow with age in the mail, the dorsal fin ultimately forming a 1.8 m high triangle.
The killer whale lives in groups, usually of a few to about 50 individuals. It often swims in formation, either in a line or in rows, and sometimes leaps out of water. It feeds on fish, cephalopods and warm-blooded marined animals. Reputedly ferocious, it is well adapted for hunting by virtue of its build, teeth and strong jaw muscles as well as its organised behaviour in pack hunting.
Some killer whales are kept in captivity and trained as oceanarium performers.
Elephant (African; Loxodonta africana, Indian; Elephas maximus)
Members of the family Elephantidae (order Proboscidae), elephants are characterised by their large size, long trunk (elongated nose), columnar legs, large ears and huge heads. Elephants are gray to brown in colour; body hair is sparse and coarse. Both species (African; Loxodonta africana, Indian; Elephas maximus) have tusks and evergrowing upper incisors, but these are usually absent in the female Indian elephant. The nostrils at the end of the dextrous muscular trunk, the tip of which has a smal fingerlike projection that enables elephants to pick up small objects. They drink by sucking water up into the trunk and then squirting it into the mouth. The male elephant has no scrotum, the testes being retained in within the body.
The African elephant has larger ears than the Indian elephant. Weighing up to 7500 kilogrammes and standing at 3 to 4 metres at the shoulder, it is the largest living land animal. The Indian elephant weighs about 5000 kg with a shoulder height of 2.5 to 3 m. The molar teeth of elephants do not erupt simultaneously, rather new ones grow forward as the existing tooth wears down. The sixth and final molar is worn down at the age of 60, hence few elephants live beyond this age.
The Indian elephant is native to the Indian peninsula and Southeast Asia. The African elephant is found in sub-Saharan Africa. Both species live in habitats ranging from thick jungle to savannah. They live in small family groups led by old cows; where food is plentiful, the group join in larger herds. Most bulls live in bachelor herds apart from the cows. Elephants migrate seasonally, according to availability of food and water. They spend many hours eating and may consume over 225 kg of vegetation per day. Gestation for the Indian elephant is around 610 days, reaching breeding age at 8 to 12 years. The gestation period for the African elephant is two months longer and mature at around age 14.
For centuries, the Indian elephant has been an important ceremonial and draft animal. Commanded by its 'mahout' (handler), the elephant has been fundamental to Southeast Asian logging. African elephants are also used as draft animals, but to a far smaller degree. Because an elephant must be at least 20 years old to perform complex tasks, the species has never been truly domesticated. Rather, young adults are captured from the wild and trained with the help of tame individuals. This practice puts additional drain on the dwindling population.
Elephants are in danger from habitat destruction and human exploitation. The Indian elephant is considered to be an endangered species with the African elephant not too far behind. African elephants are in danger of poaching for the ivory trade. Overpopulation often occurs in wildlife reserves, resulting in further habitat loss. Conservation measures include protection from poaching and the creation of large reserves, including corridor areas to protect major migratory routes. Despite these efforts, population cropping may be necessary.
Bibliography: Encylcopaedia Britannica