I am Blaine, known by bmathison1972 on the forums and blogs. I am a professional parasitologist specializing in agents of human disease, including medically-important arthropods. I am also an amateur entomologist and study Nearctic click beetles (family Elateridae). Historically, much of my collection was devoted to insects and other arthropods, but in late 2018 I started building a Synoptic Collection of other species, to have one good exemplar of any animal species (my personal ‘Natural History Museum’). Other hobbies include hiking, bird-watching, running, and lifting weights, but my other ‘big’ hobby is visiting sports arenas, especially baseball stadiums. Whenever I travel for work (which I do with some frequency), I always check to see if there is a local college, independent, minor, or major league team to see.
Before I start this review, I must again thank @Kenc and the folks at Toymany for gifting me this set as a review sample for the Blog!
The set we are looking at today consists of eight figures of domestic pigs. There are four sculpts: 1) sow, standing; 2) boar, sitting; 3) piglet, resting; and 4) piglet, standing.
Today I will be presenting a brief overview of the 2024 Frogs collection by Toymany, which was kindly gifted as a review sample by @Kenc and the folks at Toymany for the Blog. This was intended to be posted yesterday when the set was announced, but I was traveling for work so it’s coming up a day late.
There are two mammals, or perhaps broadly groups of mammals, that exemplify Halloween. One is the black cat. The other is the bat. Bats have a long history in human folklore, tradition, and fictional literature and cinema. In North America, the Creek, Cherokee, and Apache viewed the bat as a trickster god.
Mosura ya MosuraMosura ya MosuraMosura ya Mosura
Hard to believe my first two Halloween-inspired posts this year would be sphingid moths, not a group of animals typically associated with being scary, spooky, or dangerous. But after having very recently acquired this big bad beast, I had to channel my inner Shobijin and summon it for the Blog!
The genus Acherontia, whose members are commonly referred to as death’s-head hawkmoths, contains three species broadly distributed in Eurasia and Africa. The greater death’s-head hawkmoth (A. lachesis), which is the largest of the three, occurs in Central and East Asia to Japan and the Philippines; it has also recently become established in Hawaii.
Author’s note: Normally in October I follow the ‘spooky’ critters theme. However, I wanted to get this sixth and final Toymany baby African animal up on the blog, which like others I have reviewed recently, was courtesy of @Kenc and our friends at Toymany. My other posts this month will stick to the traditional theme :-).
Before I start this review I must once again thank @Kenc and our friends at Toymany for donating this review sample. This is the fifth in a series of six baby African animals I will be reviewing as part of Toymany’s 2024 Baby Wildlife collection.
Baby zebras are remarkable creatures.
Before I start this review I would again like to thank our friends at Happy Hen Toys for donating this review sample. It was on my radar when it was first announced, but I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted it. I am happy to have received this figure to see it in-hand and better appreciate it.
Before I start this review I must once again thank @Kenc and our friends at Toymany for donating this review sample, the fourth in a series of six I will be reviewing!
The reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata) breeds every 20-30 months. The gestation period is roughly 457 days.
Before I start this review I must once again thank @Kenc and our friends at Toymany for donating this review sample. The quality of Toymany’s figures, their relatively inexpensive price point, and their willingness to engage with, and take thoughts and comments by, the toy animal collector community shows why they are a quickly rising star in our hobby!
Before I start this review I would like to thank our friends at Happy Hen Toys for providing this review sample for the Blog! I have been waffling back and forth on whether or not to get this particular figure, so when an opportunity came up to review it, I was most grateful!
Before I start this review, I would like to thank @Kenc and our friends at Toymany for providing this review sample for the Blog! It is very much appreciated!
The common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) usually mates during the wet season. Mating typically takes place in the water, with the female almost entirely submerged, only poking her head up on occasion to draw a breath of air.
Before I start this review, I would like to thank @Kenc and our friends at Toymany for providing this review sample for the Blog! It is very much appreciated!
White rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum) live in herds (commonly called ‘crashes’) of up to 14 animals. These crashes are composed primarily of females.
Megalara garuda, commonly called the King of Wasps or Garuda wasp, was only formally described in 2012. It was named after the Hindu deity Garuda, the bird-like mount of the Hindu god Vishnu. This crabronid wasp is endemic to the Mekongga Mountains of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
I officially started birding in late January, 2021. One of my first ventures up City Creek Canyon, the canyon immediately behind my neighborhood in the foothills of Salt Lake City, Utah, was in mid-March of that year. As I was walking up the canyon, two birders were coming down the canyon and asked me, ‘have you seen it?’ Now, for those of you that are not birders, when you are in the field and a fellow birder asks ‘if you’ve seen it’, the ‘it’ is usually something rare that’s been reported in the area, and it’s assumed that if you are birding in that spot, you are there to see ‘it’.
