I want to say first that I LOVE Melissa and Doug products. They are very durable and grow with my son developmentally. My problem with this product is that what I received was very clearly NOT a Melissa and Doug puzzle. It very much resembled one until I picked up the puzzle pieces and discovered that they were nothing more than raw wood cut-outs w/ stickers on top! There was not one drop of paint on the pieces! The board was nicely painted and has the Melissa & Doug 'logo' on it like the others that I have, so I am not sure at all what went wrong w/ the pieces.

Got this for my little girl at 14 months old. We've owned it for 2+ months now and she still plays with it EVERYDAY! At the beginning, she only takes the pieces out and walks around with them. Now she's taking them out and could recognize which animal goes where and attempts to fit it back into their spots. The edges are very smooth and the pieces are very easy to grab for little hands. Brightly colored is surely a plus ( the picture represented here is pretty accurate in color of item that you will receive).

My little girl like to transport the entire puzzle ( the base and pieces together) from one room to the other...she has no problem in weight, but occasionally a few pieces would fall off in the midst of her transport and she goes oops! and ooh ooh! It's fun watching her :)

The only reason I gave it a 4 star is my little girl likes to chew on everything and it does wear out the picture. But for the price paid and educational value, along with the fact that it grabs her attention everyday, this is a sure winner! I am planning to purchase melissa & doug's chunky large alphabet and number puzzles as well.

Too chunky for standard puzzle racks. Two years and up, kids who put toys in their mouths should not play with this or the pictures will wear off. A fun manipulative toy, my three year old likes to stand up the animals and play pretend.

We have the Melissa and Doug farm animal puzzle also, but this one is a little trickier than that one. The safari animals are a little tougher to get into their spots (the giraffe, alligator and ostrich especially) so this was a good step-up puzzle for my one-year-old. We use it to help her learn her animals.

I love this beautiful puzzle. The kids like to play with the animals and they stand on their own.