FigureTales 287 – Clades – Cladistia

We're looking at a clade again today, and as far as clades go...I have been excited and dreading it all at the same time. As the title says, it is the crown group Cladistia, which includes the modern bichirs and reedfish and their fossil relatives. I'm excited because as I'm sure I've mentioned before, bichirs are easily my favorite fish of all time. Dreading because, well...not a whole lot to say. I may be a fan, but I'm no expert.…

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12 Days of FISHMAS! Day One!

So...I have been mulling on this for a few years now--specifically, upon reading through the article Phylogenetic Classification of Bony Fishes (Betancur-R et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology (2017) 17:162) with a few modifications, especially from Comprehensive phylogeny of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) based on transcriptomic and genomic data ((PNAS June 12, 2018 115 (24) 6249-6254)). I love cladograms. I love organizing things. I love animal figures, and I love fish. And so, I decided to work through the Actinopterygii family tree…

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Vault Tales 192 FigureFrenzy Bawitius, Therizinosaurus, Rhomalaeosaurus, Coelodonta

Prehistoric Figure Frenzy! A whole bunch of different species...three from some of my . Plus, one really unique one, a plush prehistoric polypterid! Let's take a look. Spirellity Bawitius plush key chain The only Bawitius model that was available for general sale. As a key ring (the ring has since been removed). It's about 1:23 scale, so pretty close to Freddy there. That's a big bichir! So I'm just going to start with this one! It's a small plush printed…

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Vault Tales 180 Run the Set Colorata Endangered Species Fossil Fish Box (2nd version)

Today I'm going to look at another Colorata set, one of the most exciting ones to me! This is the Endangered Species Fossil Fish box. Specifically, the second released version, from about 2010 or 2011--I got it in late 2011 and probably didn't wait very long! And why didn't I wait very long? Because it was only the second time a bichir had been made as figure! Except that the set has already been released several years earlier (2003 or…

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Vault Tales 106 Kaiyodo Pets Saddled Bichirs

The wild/regular colouration of the saddle bichir. It's hard to tell but Kaiyodo really captured the little features of this animal Here we are with another post about bichirs already. The Random Number generator made some interesting picks, but this one is extra special. It has been just over a year since I started these posts! So being able to talk about one of my favorite figures, about one of my favorite animals, is just icing on the cake! And…

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Vault Tales 102 FaunaFiguresFishes Ornate Bichir

More primitive fishes? And another bichir to boot? Well I'm happy! It seems like not that long ago I did a whole long post on the original run of FaunaFiguresFishes models. In that set I had mentioned that a couple of models were later made as a revised concept for the line--bigger, a little more detail, that kind of thing. And due to the vagaries of my random number generator, the only modern figure thus far created is today's topic--the…

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Vault Tales Run the Set 100 The FaunaFiguresFishes!

Welcome to post 100! A milestone number! And I thought I should do something different, and kind of special--so I will go over all of the figures from my original line of fish figures, made for my store! The FaunaFiguresFishes were sculpted and cast for by a sculptor named Brandon DeMoss. The first of the original waves were produced in 2016, the last one came out in late 2018. A couple of other figures were later produced in a new…

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