Felids

[Jetoar]

Really beautiful figure of this rare specie  .

[Dragonwolf]

Got milk?? 

[brontodocus]

The two 2015 additions to Safari Ltd's Wildlife Wonders are the Coyote (a completely new sculpt) and the Mountain Lion, Puma, or Cougar, Puma concolor (Linnaeus, 1771). This is the first time a Wildlife Wonders figure goes by scientific name rather than by vernacular name, hence it's "Puma concolor" on the tag and in the catalogue. It's also the first time a Wildlife Wonders sculpt is reused to represent a different species (the white repaint of the Siberian Tiger and the black version of the Grey Wolf both don't count because they were not used as different species) - it was originally used as a Black Jaguar. But this is also where the problem is: The figure has proportions which actually match a Jaguar better than a Puma. The body is very robust, deep-chested, and muscular with a massive, long-muzzled head (and proportionally small eyes and ears) and a relatively short tail. So it would have probably been a better idea to make this a Jaguar instead - and with a proper paint job it could have been a figure close to perfection. Snout-vent length is approx. 207 mm and total length approx. 308 mm, shoulder height is approx. 102 mm (about twice as large as the Safari Ltd NAW Mountain Lion http://animaltoyforum.com/index.php?topic=1276.0), so for a Puma the scale would be between approx. 1:6 - 1:8. Despite being locally extinct in many areas the Puma still has the widest geographical range of all New World land mammal species and IUCN considers it "Least Concern".
Here is a link to the Wildlife Wonders Puma concolor at Safari Ltd: https://safariltd.com/products/view/wildlife-wonders-puma-concolor-figurines-113189



















Comparison with the Wildlife Wonders Black Jaguar, the original colour version of the same sculpt:




Edit 2017-02-05: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

Nice figure but I prefer the NAW version. Sometimes the reapaints are good however, in this figure..... I understand it  .

[brontodocus]

Walk-around of the CollectA Wild Life 88708 Amur Leopard or Far Eastern Leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis (Schlegel, 1857), new for 2015. Snout-vent length is approx. 92 mm and shoulder height would be approx. 54 mm (if the figure wasn't crouching, due to its pose the figure is no taller than 46.5 mm) so the scale is between approx. 1:12 and 1:14 (P. p. orientalis is a particularly small subspecies). The human figure (South American Father by Miniland "Los Amigos del Mundo") is approx. 1:13 - 1:14 scale. This is one of the rarest Leopard subspecies, one census of 2000 counted less than 20 specimens remaining in the wild. It seems the population has recovered a little and very recently WWF reported 57 individuals from Russia and an additional eight to twelve from adjacent China. Still, by going through such a population bottleneck the genetic variability in a given taxon will be severely depleted and it's no surprise that a 2002 study showed that the Amur Leopard has the lowest level of genetic variation of any Leopard subspecies. It is listed "Critically Endangered" by IUCN.


















Edit 2017-02-04: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

Awesome. I bouught the mine yesterday with other Collecta figures  .

[brontodocus]

Awesome. I bouught the mine yesterday with other Collecta figures  .

Thanks, Jetoar - and congrats!

[sbell]

From what I've been told we'll be waiting until at least June to have these in Canada. but I am looking forward to this one.

[Jetoar]

I recive my figure today and the scult of the hair is awesome  .

[brontodocus]

Thanks, Sean and Jetoar!

[Jetoar]

Thanks, Sean and Jetoar!

Step by step, Collecta could catch up Papo with the big cats.

[Rossano]

Just bought one today, and I am really amazed by the quality of the model. Extraordinary solution to render the particular texture of the fur, really never seen anything similar, and the paintings are extraordinarily accurate and variated in tones and well connected one to the other. I have to say that as I checked out all the ten pieces of this model on the shelf, jus t a couple of them were really perfect like mine, while the other presented such releavant differences in the quality of the paintings that once seen the best one I would not have bought one of the others.

I think that the current roaring lion by Papo is just to the same level, but I have to judge from the image on Papo's site, since the store did not have it today. I think the previous comments are older than the release of this model. Did some other really nice male lions have been released since then, other than Papo's?

[brontodocus]

Just bought one today, and I am really amazed by the quality of the model. Extraordinary solution to render the particular texture of the fur, really never seen anything similar, and the paintings are extraordinarily accurate and variated in tones and well connected one to the other. I have to say that as I checked out all the ten pieces of this model on the shelf, jus t a couple of them were really perfect like mine, while the other presented such releavant differences in the quality of the paintings that once seen the best one I would not have bought one of the others.

I think that the current roaring lion by Papo is just to the same level, but I have to judge from the image on Papo's site, since the store did not have it today. I think the previous comments are older than the release of this model. Did some other really nice male lions have been released since then, other than Papo's?

It's of course a question of taste but there are some people, including me, who think that the perfect male lion figure still has to be released. The roaring and the non-roaring, friendly looking one by Papo are my favourites so far. The Lioness featured here (and I see many of the photos are gone so I'll update my first post) may still be a tad better than those two.

Edit: Images in first post are back again.

[brontodocus]

Papo has started releasing large scale figures of animals and the first in line is the 2016 Tigress, Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758); item No. 50178, new for 2016. This figure is almost twice as large as Papo's regular Tiger figures e.g. this one and very similar in size to the Safari Ltd Wildlife Wonders Tiger (see photos below). Snout-vent length is approx. 207 mm, tail length approx. 115 mm, and the shoulder height is approx. 108 mm. Therefore, the scale is something between 1:8 and 1:10. It is also quite a heavy figure, mine is 473 g. Over the last two decades the global population of tigers has declined from an estimate of 5,000 to 7,000 in 1998 to a little over 3,000 individuals and the species remains "Endangered" according to IUCN.




















Edit 2017-02-05: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

Wow, Thanks for sharing Brontodocus. It is really big  .

[AcroSauroTaurus]

The sculpt is pretty good, but the paint work is pretty bad. Those stripes are especially terrible. And this is a 2016 figure, they could've done so much better with the paint job. The sculpt is great, but the paint job ruins it.

[brontodocus]

The sculpt is pretty good, but the paint work is pretty bad. Those stripes are especially terrible. And this is a 2016 figure, they could've done so much better with the paint job. The sculpt is great, but the paint job ruins it.

I see your point, the paint job does not do the figure's sculpt quality justice.

[Rossano]

Saw the roaring lion yesterday, you were right brotondocus, it's not up to the level of the lioness. I was a bit let down and left it on the shelf. Actually I dont' remember to have seen much better figurines of male lions, maybe I'd go anyway on the roaring one. But the world is so full of diverse animal figurines that I might be done with the lioness for the species, for some time on.

[KeU]

Photos are down, can we have them reposted please?

[BlueKrono]

Yeah, I wish I could see them...