Blaine's Synoptic Animal Collection

Many things changed in your collection since you started being more regularly on STS-Forum.
You are building a tremendous collection with very good taste and diversity. I am sure some collectors will find inspiration in your collecting concept.

Beautiful shelves once again! Of course my favorites are the canids and weasel relatives.

Wonderful collection

Just amazing! What made you decide on the Schleich domestic cat?

Advicot wrote:

Just amazing! What made you decide on the Schleich domestic cat?

Growing up with cats, it seemed most natural to me. But, it is going away soon, as I am replacing it with one of the Kitan Club Cats of Osamu Moriguchi figures :-)

Wonderful models again!!!!!

Wonderful to see. I am really looking forward to seeing your choices for hoofed stock.

Fair enough

Taos wrote:

Wonderful models again!!!!!

Absolutly agree

Back to new additions. I have taken the plunge (finally) into dinosaurs. However, unlike my arthropod collection and to some degree the Synoptic Animal collection, I will be much more selective and much less all-inclusive. The vast majority of the dinos I will invest in will be Safari figures sculpted by Doug Watson and released in the last few-several years. I may get other brands if the quality is top notch and it is an interesting or unusual species. I don't need to be a completest for dinosaurs. I will probably avoid the Japanese companies outside of small species.

I have an Excel file with roughly 60 species I want. I figure I will do 5-7 a month or so, or I may break them out taxonomically. Not sure how many I will end up getting, but nice to have a few just to have the taxa represented.

For my first, proof-of-concept purchases, I picked 5 classic examples: Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops horridus, Veloceraptor mongoliensis, Stegosaurus stenops, and Apatosaurus louisae (Doug, if you are reading this, you can correct me if the intended species is wrong).

For now, I will probably keep them in storage, as I don't really have the room to add a bunch of dinos, which tend to me larger than most standard animal figures. But it is good to secure them for now.

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And while we are on the topic of 'dinosaurs' I also bought four 'suchids' (I know, not a taxonomic term). I was planning on getting these regardless of the 'true dinosaurs' above: Sarcosuchus imperator, Prestosuchus chiniquensis, Postosuchus kirkpatricki, and Kaprosuchus sp.
I know the Postosuchus is considered an outdated pose, but it is such a nice model. Besides, I have some issues with the current concept - something about a bipedal animal with very small front legs and 75% of its mass in front doesn't sit right with me...but, I am an entomologist and not a vertebrate zoologist. Care to comment Halichoeres?

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As far as selection goes, you definitely got the best representations of these species. I love the postosuchus personally, probably my favorite of all my prehistorics. Congrats.

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

As far as selection goes, you definitely got the best representations of these species. I love the postosuchus personally, probably my favorite of all my prehistorics. Congrats.

Thanks! I know you and I have both played with the dino idea and how to display and all. Looks like we are on the same page :)

I enjoy your choices for dinosaurs and I am an enthusiast of suchids, great neologism.
As long as there is a sarcosuchus in your collection, you already have the most important of the prehistoric creatures, a kind of imperator.
I have also a postosuchus, fantastic animal!

Congratulations

Wonderful new Archosauria

Great choices of dinos as well as the beautyful 'suchids'

I got the Triceratops recently, and at first I was not very impressed, because it is quite different from other triceratops-models.
So I began googling, and found that there are new finds that this model shows, even if ( correct me if I am wrong) some exaggerated
Actually I planned to make a walkaround , but am not sure I know enough to do it right

Marvellous choices Blaine

SUSANNE wrote:

Great choices of dinos as well as the beautyful  'suchids'

I got the Triceratops recently, and at first I was not very impressed, because it is quite different from other triceratops-models.
So I began googling, and found that there are new finds that this model shows, even if  ( correct me if I am wrong) some exaggerated
Actually I planned to make a walkaround , but am not sure I know enough to do it right  

Doug Watson typically sculpts the most up-to-date concepts.

Wonderful choices Blaine !
Congratulations !  

SUSANNE wrote:

Great choices of dinos as well as the beautyful  'suchids'

I got the Triceratops recently, and at first I was not very impressed, because it is quite different from other triceratops-models.
So I began googling, and found that there are new finds that this model shows, even if  ( correct me if I am wrong) some exaggerated
Actually I planned to make a walkaround , but am not sure I know enough to do it right  

Actually as far as I know, there is also a new, interesting finds about the Stegosaurus too ... and the Safari model is based on them too :)

Great additions. I have many dinos and am pretty fond of some of the most outdated species and poses (Go Trachodon!). Considering that we almost certainly have the colors and soft morphology all wrong (Parasurolophus with or without skin flap - discuss) plus missed that whole feathers thing for more than half my life, it's all rather theoretical anyway so why not go with what you like.

Tiermann wrote:

Great additions. I have many dinos and am pretty fond of some of the most outdated species and poses (Go Trachodon!). Considering that we almost certainly have the colors and soft morphology all wrong (Parasurolophus with or without skin flap - discuss) plus missed that whole feathers thing for more than half my life, it's all rather theoretical anyway so why not go with what you like.

That's a very good philosophy to live by. Every year more and more dinosaur figures become outdated as we learn more about them. Dinosaur toys and figures are great time capsules, capturing the knowledge at the time.

Some more Doug Watson dinosaurs, (Doug or Halichoeres - let me know if I have the wrong intended species-level IDs)

First, a couple Jurassic theropods, Dilophosaurus wetherilli and Allosaurus fragilis:

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One sauropod this time, Camarasaurus lentus:

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A couple Cretaceous theropods, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and Citipati osmolskae:

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Lastly, Cretaceous ornithischians Ankylosaurus magniventris, Styracosaurus albertensis, Edmontosaurus regalis, Iguanodon bernissartensis, and Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis:

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With Doug's models you are surely very well served. I can't help too much with the species level. Just let me fix a minor thing, even if most theropods are bipedal, they are all tetrapods but never therapods.

EDIT: nevermind, I misread something :)

I corrected the typo