My Ice Age Collection (Update: May 10, 2015)

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the board and excited to be here. I've been working for a few years on a collection of Late Pleistocene (end-of-the-Ice Age) animals. My goal has been a good representation of life at that time for here in Southern Alberta, Canada. This has been both for personal interest and as a teaching tool I use in my education programs (I have a day-job in a museum and a part-time job in a zoo, but also have my own company... [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I'm also trying to amass a collection of fossil teeth to go with them.

Anyways, this is where they normally live...

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And here is a closer look, both with and without the flash (for the details)...

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So far so good. I've only had to really do a couple touch-ups and one customization: a repaint on the Schleich cave bear, both to cover for it's poor paint job and to stand-in for a North American short-faced bear (anatomically incorrect, but I'm not at the stage of fully making my own model). I've also had to let a Schleich grey wolf stand-in for a dire wolf (it works relative to the Safari grey wolf). The Safari jackalope and furry trout are just a joke

Right now I'm on the hunt for a mastodon (for which I may have to break down and buy a model I saw on Shapeways), a large enough beaver to stand-in for castoroides, and a properly scaled pronghorn antelope. I did buy the Safari pronghorn online, but when I got it, it turned out to be very poorly done and about the same size as my mammoths. I plan on getting the new CollectA smilodon when it comes out and customizing it into a scimitar cat.

Anyways, there it is. Thanks for looking!

Welcome here! Great collection, I like how you display them all on the globe!

Thanks! Glad to be here!

A very cool collection :)

Welcome here! Very interesting collection, love the globe too btw.
And you have a part time job a the zoo??!! And in a museum? (What kind? Natural History?) Notjealousatall.com... XD

Great looking collection and an interesting way to narrow a collection. I wonder if a repaint of one of the maned wolf models might work for a dire wolf?

Very interesting projects and is it the globe from the same period?
How, I found in your website that we are already friends for a long time, This picture confirms it!

Very nice and interesting collection! Thank you for sharing photos of it. And as others I also like the way you display them around the globe, very cool idea!
And you seems to have very interesting job too. Zoo and museum? Really, sounds great!

Thank you very much, everyone!

NightLioness wrote:

And you have a part time job a the zoo??!! And in a museum? (What kind? Natural History?) Notjealousatall.com... XD

Besides being an awesome job, working at a zoo comes with a handy staff discount for animal toys The museum I work at is mostly art and culture, though we do have a mineralogy gallery that I do a lot of work in.

Tiermann wrote:

Great looking collection and an interesting way to narrow a collection. I wonder if a repaint of one of the maned wolf models might work for a dire wolf?

Dire wolves were generally more robust than grey wolves and specialized in larger prey animals. The Schleich wolf works relatively well compared to a Safari grey wolf, since the sculpt is also more robust. As relatively well as anything, given that getting the right scale is a perpetual problem

Roger wrote:

How, I found in your website that we are already friends for a long time, This picture confirms it!

Sarcosuchus is a pretty impressive beast :)

Beautiful and very interesting collection!  
Welcome here

CWGross wrote:

Thank you very much, everyone!

NightLioness wrote:

And you have a part time job a the zoo??!! And in a museum? (What kind? Natural History?) Notjealousatall.com... XD

Besides being an awesome job, working at a zoo comes with a handy staff discount for animal toys The museum I work at is mostly art and culture, though we do have a mineralogy gallery that I do a lot of work in.

It is a childhood dream of mine to work in a zoo.
I have gain experience and have the right papers... But all the zoos are so far away
Discount     You are a lucky person!

Great collection! Very cool idea.

I considered suggesting the Pronghorn by Mojo Fun. But I don't think it's significantly smaller than the Safari model. Perhaps a tiny bit smaller, but not much. It is, however, an excellent model. In fact, it was originally sculpted by (or perhaps the model was based on an original sculpt by) Anna, who posted above on this thread.

Well I think Roger touching for a eons long association tells you how cool this endeavor of yours is. Go you!

Thanks again everyone!

scot(t) wrote:

Great collection! Very cool idea.

I considered suggesting the Pronghorn by Mojo Fun. But I don't think it's significantly smaller than the Safari model. Perhaps a tiny bit smaller, but not much. It is, however, an excellent model. In fact, it was originally sculpted by (or perhaps the model was based on an original sculpt by) Anna, who posted above on this thread.

I've seen photos of it and it does look great, but yeah, the size concerns me. Unfortunately there are very few places around here to buy figures. There is a mall with a Discovery Hut that sells Schleich and Papo, and the zoo I work at flips periodically between Safari and Mojo. Right now it's in a Safari phase. I don't get a good chance to take a look at many models first hand.

Alright, time for the newest additions!

These are some of the ones I showed previously...

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And going along the rim of the globe I keep them on, this is my herd of bison. From left to right, it's the Papo bison repainted and standing in for Bison occidentalis, then Safari's bison, then Schleich's first bison repainted and representing the modern plains bison (Bison bison bison), then Mojo's bison with a repaint and representing the modern wood bison (Bison bison athabascae)...

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Then my herd of elephants and sabretooths, inbetween which is a touched-up Mojo wolf. It is my new stand-in for the dire wolf (Canis dirus)...

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And finally my herd of various other things... There's the Schleich whitetail deer, and Mojo's whitetail which I touched-up on the rear to become a mule deer, a Safari white wolf, a Schleich moose, and Mojo's camel standing in for the giant camel (Camelops hesternus) which most scientists estimate had just one hump.

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So I'm just adding here and there as I find good figures... Next up, I'm hoping to get my hands on the new CollectA sabretooth, that I want to custom into a scimitar cat (Homotherium serum).

I love the way to present them !!!and what a beautyful globe you have ! Is it antique ?

Nice additions

Thanks for the compliments!

SUSANNE wrote:

I love the way to present them !!!and what a beautyful globe you have ! Is it antique ?

It's one of those pseudo-antique globe wine-bars from the 1980's that I recovered from an old garage. It used to open up and you could store wine bottles and glasses in it. Doesn't open anymore, but I cleaned it up nicely :)

That's a clever way to turn common figures in some prehistoric beasts. Thanks for showing!

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This model is made by ELC/AAA and is a large model so maybe an idea for your prehistoric beaver.

A nice beaver!

That beaver is a great idea... Unfortunately it would run me close to $61.00CAN to order the one I can find on Ebay. That is a little beyond my price range

So I managed to find one of those AAA beavers for a relatively affordable price and it looks perfect! The perfect complement to the actual fossil giant beaver tooth I also got recently!

Here it is in my collection, beside a Safari Smilodon, and a Mojo beaver...

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Great addition, it looks perfect there.

This is indeed a nice Castoroides, congratulation