Coyote, adult (Safari Ltd. - North American Wildlife)

[brontodocus]

Walk-around of the Safari Ltd. Wild Safari North American Wildlife Coyote, Canis latrans Say, 1823. Shoulder height of the figure is 47 mm so the scale is approximately 1:13 to 1:14. The human figure ("European Father" from Miniland "Los Amigos del Mundo") is 1:13 to 1:14 scale, too.
The coyote can be found here at Safari Ltd.: http://safariltd.shptron.com/p/wild-safari%C2%AE-north-american-wildlife-coyote














Edit 2017-02-07: Fixed broken image urls.

[Jetoar]

Very nice figure, teh bestd etail is the head, thanks for sahring again friend. I think that the brand should do more figures of other members of Canidae  .

[sbell]

As someone who lives closely near coyotes, I have to say--the sculpt is good, but the colouring is weird.  The thik=ck black line is heavily exaggerated from any I have seen--most are the simple greys and browns. And are usually fuzzier (up north here anyway!).

[Ana]

Very nice figure, I have it too and I like it Thank You for great walk around, I like very much Your photos Brontodocus

[brontodocus]

Thanks, Jetoar, sbell, and Ana!

As someone who lives closely near coyotes, I have to say--the sculpt is good, but the colouring is weird.  The thik=ck black line is heavily exaggerated from any I have seen--most are the simple greys and browns. And are usually fuzzier (up north here anyway!).

I believe - apart from individual variation - that black line may be more distinctive in some subspecies and mostly absent in others. The Eastern Coyote, C. l. thamnos, seems to have the stripe quite often:

Admittedly, the contrast of the stripe with the rest of the body appears to be quite harsh in the figure's colouration. And the photo does indeed show one of the more fuzzier ones.

[sphyrna18]

I like this figure.  The black stripe doesn't seem to be too pronounced compared to the Eastern Coyotes in my neck of the woods.  This figure definitely represents an Eastern Coyote, though, as opposed to any of the western coyotes.

Eastern Coyotes are thought to be, most likely, all descended from Coyote x Eastern Wolf (Canis lupus lycaon) hybrids, which accounts for their larger size and different dental structure and social structure (they do form a stable, self-sustaining subpopulation now, though).  They are significantly larger than their midwestern and western counterparts; even the smallest female Eastern Coyotes are about 20% larger than the largest male Western Coyotes.  Male Eastern Coyotes routinely reach weights of 75 pounds, with some estimates as high as 80 pounds or more, and they stand as tall as 26" (66cm) at the shoulders.   

Eastern Coyotes in the southeastern US tend to be very similar in structure to the Red Wolf (Canis lupus rufus or Canis rufus; the taxonomy is still unresolved), and many are not convinced the Red Wolf is a unique species of canid or even a unique subspecies of Grey Wolf (Canis lupus), but instead believe that Red Wolves are nothing more than coyote x wolf hybirds.  Regardless, it is known that Red Wolves and Eastern Coyotes are very similar, and Eastern Coyotes in the southeast often look much more like Red Wolves than like Coyotes.

It's my opinion that the Wild Safari Coyote looks most similar to these Red Wolf-like Eastern Coyotes in both structure and coat pattern. But then again, I could be wrong.

[brontodocus]

Photo urls of NAW Coyote walk-around repaired.