Species ID for possible extinct mammals

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Posted this on the DTF but I didn't get much feedback there. I am hoping that maybe this group of collectors might be able to add some thoughts!

Anyhow, I have a couple of figures that I am interested in custom painting as I don't feel like they accurately fit any extant animal well enough to keep as is. I am interested in turning these into prehistoric themed species if they can fit the characteristics of one or another (I think they are close enough). However, despite all my research and excitement, I either can't find a species that fits well enough or I just can't settle on one or the other... thus I have decided to crowd source.

Any thoughts?


The top 2 are my prime focus, but the bottom 2 I think might work for this project idea also.

I know that really I can repaint them however I like since we don't know the coloration or patterns they actually had. But it helps to have an ID either for inspiration from paleoart or to find a modern/extant homology to work from.

Any and all thoughts are welcome!

[EpicRaptorMan]

The gray one is a Nayab Mongoose.

[bmathison1972]

The gray one is a Nayab Mongoose.

she's not asking what it is, she's asking what's a realistic prehistoric animal it can be turned into with a new paint job.

[EpicRaptorMan]

The gray one is a Nayab Mongoose.

she's not asking what it is, she's asking what's a realistic prehistoric animal it can be turned into with a new paint job.

Then paint it a light brown and make it a Mongoose that lived 500,000 years ago

[sbell]

@Saarlooswolfhound  In an attempt to put something helpful here...

If you want to paint the mongoose into a prehistoric mongoose, there are Oligocene species like Herpestes lemanensis, it probably looked pretty much like a modern herpestine mongoose.

The biggest situation is that early carnivorans/pan-carnivorans (the carnivorans plus the stem-groups) all have a fairly similar exterior appearance. A lot of the differentiation comes from dentition and small variations in feet and skulls, things you wouldn't see in these types of figures (or any, really). I would suggest going through paleoart of people like Mauricio Anton, finding animals that have a similar appearance and modelling your pattern from that! Depending on how exact you wish to be, you can then take a look at things like the foot and ankle morphologies, make sure those match.

But there are potential suggestions anyway--the top left one and bottom right one have vague Oxyaenidae looks to them (a pan-carnivoran, formerly one of the Creodont lineages). Patriofelis is probably the easiest to find for reconstructions.

The other ones have vague felimorph appearances, which could let them represent stem carnivoramorphs like miacids and viverravids; the latter are basal to the miacids+carnivorans clade; and miacids are in turn the sister-group to carnivora.

Both are more generalized in outer appearance, with cat-, mongoose- or civet-like overall appearances.

I've seen Miacis reconstructed in a fashion very similar to the bottom left figure; given the broadly-similar look of viverravids (not viverrids...) to civets(viverrids...yay nomenclature) and mongooses that top right one could probably take inspiration there.

And really, even the 'oxyaenid' looking ones could represent some kind of miacid as well--there are some that have appearances that reflect both feliformia and caniformia morphologies (in a very general sense).

I don't know how much this has actually helped...small pan-carnivorans are pretty similar, and the figures themselves are pretty vague. But hopefully I've at least given a few suggestions on where to take inspiration.

[Saarlooswolfhound]

Thank you Sbell! You understood the assignment I was trying to present.

I know that these all are intended to be mongoose/genet/civet species etc. In fact, I am the one who originally collected the "dwarf mongoose" and helped get it ID'd for TAW on the Nayab page. I have the smaller version of the model I am keeping for this species in my collection. Perhaps I didn't explain my concept well enough, but my project idea is to take these models that I personally feel don't match their closest extant species ID and take the opportunity to not just throw them away, but to make them into something more interesting for me.

The issue is that even though I have read a half dozen books on early mammals and have done all the googling I can, many books tend to be a fair bit too generic and it has been difficult to find something more concrete for inspiration for paintwork. I.e. I have a small chinamal uinatherium I painted like an okapi because I thought it'd look nice. I don't want to go quite *that* imaginative and wanted to emulate something a little less fanciful (yes, I know that there is no way to tell the color of pelage for these animals). Essentially, I am just trying to find a middle ground between creating something realistic, but also more interesting than just flat brown.

Sbell, you've given me a bit more to research on and peruse any paleoart for these groups. This project will be down the road a bit, but ya helped me clear the mental roadblock and I can keep mulling over possible paint schemes. Thanks!

[sbell]

@Saarlooswolfhound happy to help. I think many of us have done that with figures that don't quite match up with their intended animals.
Hyena figures are notorious for this.