Review and images by Bruhmingo; edited by bmathison1972
My passion as a collector is most geared towards replicas cast from real specimens, and AAA is perhaps the best known producer of such models. AAA is a rather mysterious company that produced many of our favorite cast replicas. While this means exemplary detail, it is often incredibly difficult to identify the species a figure is representing, usually due to mislabeling or an inaccurate paint scheme.
This Saturday, shark week will take a slight detour into skates, covering this alleged ”Devil Fish”. Skates are the group of batoids belonging to the Rajiformes order. They appear to resemble sting rays but can be distinguished by their thicker and shorter tails that lack the venomous spines. Skates are found all across the world in both marine environments and even estuaries.
As the first group to leave the waters to become, at least partially, terrestrial, amphibians have had a long and intriguing evolutionary history. Though no longer the mighty giants they were once, they still exist in a multitude across the globe, in spite of the many trials they face from disease and humanity.
Scuttling along shorelines, rummaging in the surf or sand, crustaceans are well known beach living animals, especially the crab. With their pincers, shells and multiple legs, they are well known critters, and have many figures made of them. Here, we see one of many examples made by AAA.
As usual, discerning a species is incredibly tricky, as this is just labelled “crab”.
When most think of big cats, they probably picture these powerful carnivores majestically tracking their prey in the undergrowth, or roaring to ward off other predators. At the end of the day though, they are still cats, and there is one thing that makes them very good at: sleeping. The mighty tiger (Panthera tigris) is no exception, happy to lounge around when not hunting.
The oceans are full of wonderous, graceful but also dangerous animals, though many of these reactions depend on what species you are. This review will look at one that, to us, is graceful, beautiful and intelligence, but to many fish and whales is a dangerous predator, the killer whale (Orcinus orca), or the orca.
The oceans of the world are some of the most mysterious habitats on the planet. While animals like whales, turtles and rays live in the light, the deeper you go, the darker it gets, and the sun dare not shine on the creatures that hide in the permanent night. It is an area of the world that is still being uncovered to this day, and the life forms that have evolved there are truly bizarre.
Continuing the “Winter Wonderland” series, we are going into the highest elevations of the world, as we look at a figure of one of the rarest cats in the world, the snow leopard (Panthera uncia). These beautiful cats are found across the mountainous regions of central and south Asia, hunting across the Tibetan Plateau and Siberia.
Once more we delve into the “Winter Wonderland”, to a creature that sleeps during this time of cold and hardships, the bear. These carnivorans are fairly successful, thanks to their ability to tackle any food, be it fauna or flora, to build themselves up for hibernation in the cold winter months.
Now to something a little more domestic in our “Winter Wonderland” series. The domestic sheep (Ovis aries) has an impressive fur coat, which would help with coping with high or cold climbs across the globe. Giving us wool and meat, sheep are a mainstay of the farmland, so there is a lot of figures of the various breeds.
Review and images by callmejoe3; edited by bmathison1972
Today marks a return to cataloging a member of the group of eight-limbed cephalopods. The order of octopuses, Octopoda, contains 300 extant species. These creatures inhabit a wide range of habitats ranging from pelagic waters and coral reefs to the deepest parts of the oceans.
Welcome, once again, to my “Winter Wonderland” series! We started in the great white north, now we shall go to the frozen south of the world: Antarctica, responsible for such icy greats as the Ice Age. It is also an area where terrestrial mammals aren’t present, thus the major terrestrial animals are penguins, having adapted to the cold climate over millions of years.
