Loon's Collection of Not Dead Animals

[bmathison1972]

It's a little smaller, but the 2020 Schleich Galapagos tortoise is actually pretty good!

[Loon]

Well, even more stuff's come since that last post. I can't help myself; when there's a 5% eBay bucks promotion, I gotta take advantage of it.

You can read my thoughts on the prehistoric figures here.

First up is the Safari Primates TOOB. I don't really own any TOOBs, so I was pretty shocked by how nice these figures looked. @Advicot, thanks for recommending this. I'm absolutely in love with the Coquerel's Sifaka.


Next, Safari's 2015 Oceanic Octopus and their 2005 Giant Anteater. The Oceanic Octopus is really impressive, and I don't even know much about octopuses. The Giant Anteater is amazing, I love that she has her baby on her back. I'm definitely more impressed with this one than the Papo one.


I also got some of the 2020 CollectA animals, the Mountain Gorilla, Komodo Dragon, Three-Toed Sloth, and Horseshoe Crab. They're all really good. Though, I'm still not 100% sold on the Komodo, it seems a little too thick and a little too dog-like.


@bmathison1972 I bought that Schleich Tortoise, it looks pretty good, and I wanted to get some pictures of it with this guy. Here's my favorite get of the past bit, the "Evolving Darwin" set by Accoutrements. I've seen a few people with this Darwin figure, and I just had to have it. The non-Darwin figures in this set are just weird, they all have his face (if he was played by George Carlin). Still, I've been having a bit too much fun taking pictures with this guy.

[bmathison1972]

This pic is priceless: The Primate Posse! LOL

[Loon]

@bmathison1972 thanks! I like that one a lot too.

I got my first non-prehistoric Schleich figure, the Galapagos Tortoise. It's pretty nice, which kind of shocked me given Schleich's track record, especially for a recent figure of theirs.


Of course, Darwin wanted to investigate this new friend.

[Loon]

I got a box from Safari last week with some really great models. I'm really loving this sea turtle, it's so beautiful.


Also, I just reorganized my display today and it finally looks good to me. The addition of the bases I use in my prehistoric displays finally brings this shelf up to that level, at least to me.




Let me know what you think!

[bmathison1972]

Lookin' good, Loon!

[Advicot]

Great array of figures and species

[Loon]

Thanks for the compliments guys.

My first Japanese miniature figures (of extant animals) arrived a couple of days ago. Most of them are from the Aquatales series by Kaiyodo and the Tuatara is from Colorata.

I love the diorama here, it's so amazing from every angle.




Also, does anyone know what species this fish is? The seller threw it in as an extra and I have no idea.

[Isidro]

Here you have witb the name in the bottlecap:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hOAAAOSwWxldEHAV/s-l400.jpg

Spiny red gurnard, Chelidonichthys spinosus. Most people see gurnards as "thrash food fish", without knowing that they're so beautiful when alive...
I have the Colorata version, not so richly detailed and magnific, but much smaller so it can fit into my collection

Edit: I also notice that the sailfish is on the bottlecap of a squid

[Loon]

Thanks @Isidro

I wasn't familiar with the spiny red gurnard by name, I'm not really a fish guy; but I have to agree, it's a beautiful animal.

Also, it's very odd that the bottle cap is for a squid, it came in the original packaging with the fish. I wonder if it was a factory mistake or the seller messed up. Still, I don't display them with the caps, so it's not the end of the world.

[bmathison1972]

that gurnard is spectacular; I also have the Colorata one and this one may be better

[Advicot]

I have the tuatara on my wishlist

[Loon]

that gurnard is spectacular; I also have the Colorata one and this one may be better

It's a really nice figure, and I'm not that into fish, honestly. Fish and arthropods are sections of the animal kingdom my extant collection has yet to explore.

I have the tuatara on my wishlist

It's a really great figure. You won't regret getting one!

Well, the extant collection is now a little under a fifth the size of the extinct collection. That number will only grow, I'm sure.

Alright, onto the new stuff. This order came in about a week ago and I had meant to post it here sooner, but school's gotten in the way.


First up is Safari's Peregrine Falcon. This is a really good figure, and shockingly my first "normal" bird. I had considered the Papo one, but I didn't find the pose all that appealing.


Next up is the Papo Emperor Penguin with Chick. I have very similar feelings about this figure to the Ring-tailed Lemur they made. It seems to lack the usual detail and finish I expect from a Papo figure. Still, it's alright.


It finally happened, I bought a freaking horse. Safari's Przewalski's Horse is actually really nice. I like this figure quite a bit, the detail's petty good and I like the color scheme.


Finally, what may be my favorite figure of the lot, Safari's Okapi. I've always been find of Okapis. When I was very young, I saw some at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, back when it was called the Wild Animal Park. I remember the tour guide telling us that they were actually close relatives to Giraffes, and I was shocked.


Here's a picture of my ever growing not dead Dinosaur collection.


Also, I got the magnificent I-Toy Paraceratherium. I talk more about it in my collection thread on the DTF, but I'll just say it's fantastic. Here are some comparison images.

With other 1:20 scale models.


I don't believe this is to scale; with Safari's White Rhino.

[bmathison1972]

Nice choices! The Paraceratherium is fantastic but is indeed a bit big (for my tastes at least).

[Advicot]

I really need to get a hold of that Przwalskis

[Loon]

It's been a bit since I posted in this thread, but that doesn't mean I've stopped collecting. If anything, it seems that my collection will be focusing more on extant species for the foreseeable future.


My cetacean collection seems to be increasing at a dangerous rate. Thanks to @callmejoe3's review, I grabbed Mojö's Grey Whale with some Christmas cash. I know this isn't originally a Mojo sculpt, but I'm just surprised by how good their modern animal figures are, given how weak their dinosaurs can be.


Papo's Whale Shark is another amazing, and big, figure. Other than claspers, I can't really tell male from female sharks apart, so given this figures lack of them, I assume it's female. I kind of want to do a display of 1/35 and 1/40 large sea animals, and was hoping this one would work, but it's closer to 1/60 for a larger female. Still, it's definitely the best I've seen; the paint job alone is spectacular.


In my last post, I said my collection really didn't focus on arthropods and fish; guess I lied. Well, I don't really have any arthropods, I now have about as many sharks as I do whales. Safari's Nurse Shark is just the latest of these. It's an overall very nice figure, and brings back a lot of memories. I used to be terrified of sharks when I was a kid, so when my family went to SeaWorld, I always was freaked out in the shark attraction. But, strangely, even then I knew about the more docile nurse sharks, and was kind of reassured by their existence. As weird as that may seem.


And finally, something that's been a bit of a holy grail for a while now, Safari's California Condor has finally joined my collection. I'm very happy to have this figure; it's even better looking in hand. I'm still unsure of where to put it, as I generally like to separate extinct and extant Quaternary animals, and this species is so tied to prehistory, I kind of want to put it with my mastodon.

[callmejoe3]

Papo's Whale Shark is another amazing, and big, figure. Other than claspers, I can't really tell male from female sharks apart, so given this figures lack of them, I assume it's female. I kind of want to do a display of 1/35 and 1/40 large sea animals, and was hoping this one would work, but it's closer to 1/60 for a larger female. Still, it's definitely the best I've seen; the paint job alone is spectacular.

I honestly wouldn't get too worked up over the size of the whale shark. Even though females are known to achieve lengths up to 15-18m, research in predicting average size for physically mature whale sharks of either sex has been iffy because field measurements are overly represented by immature individuals and calculations for asymptotic sizes are based on observed growth rates rather than measuring of a sample size mature specimens. The Papo figure roughly aligns with a 9.6m individual, likely pretty small compared to the average size of mature females, but can still work as a typical-sized individual that researchers normally see. The Monterey Bay Aquarium whale shark is only slightly longer and it was designed specifically for the 1:40 scale.

[bmathison1972]

very nice again, Loon! I have the Papo whale shark and Safari nurse shark. My California condor is my Kaiyodo but I might replace it with the Safari one if I ever found it

[Isidro]

Fabulous additions! Two figures I have plus two I want! So all of them have the finest quality enough for my collection, so you did very good in buying them.
Almost all sharks are very docile, kind and calm in nature, but nurse sharks aren't the most docile. There are reported attacks on nurse sharks to humans. Humans always tend to judge all things in the world, and epecially nature, with an extremely biased and almost always very wrong perspective, and this is probably the case. Being a benthic shark with round muzzle, small eyes, barbels and hypostomic small mouth, it don't have a "fierce" appareance. But we humans should stop juzging animals from appareance instead from real facts. Sharks tend to be docile even if they have a "fierce" appareance. To the contrary, humans kills hundreds of sharks every day, often in very cruel ways.

California condor is absolutely not tied with prehistory. Maybe you mistook it for an extinct relative, Gymnogyps amplus, but is an obscure and little known species.

[bmathison1972]

Fabulous additions! Two figures I have plus two I want! So all of them have the finest quality enough for my collection, so you did very good in buying them.
Almost all sharks are very docile, kind and calm in nature, but nurse sharks aren't the most docile. There are reported attacks on nurse sharks to humans. Humans always tend to judge all things in the world, and epecially nature, with an extremely biased and almost always very wrong perspective, and this is probably the case. Being a benthic shark with round muzzle, small eyes, barbels and hypostomic small mouth, it don't have a "fierce" appareance. But we humans should stop juzging animals from appareance instead from real facts. Sharks tend to be docile even if they have a "fierce" appareance. To the contrary, humans kills hundreds of sharks every day, often in very cruel ways.

California condor is absolutely not tied with prehistory. Maybe you mistook it for an extinct relative, Gymnogyps amplus, but is an obscure and little known species.

The California condor is part of the prehistoric fauna of the early Pleistocene. One of the main reasons the condor was on the brink of extinction was because the prehistoric megafauna it relied on for its carrion-based diet became extinct.