Corrections for Toy Animal Wiki

Roger, I don't think you need to apologize. Even today, many good companies don't specify to the species level, and many figures are still sculpted/painted in a stylized and unidentifiable way.

I don't know if it's a choice due to avoiding market issues, or sculptor choices of reference material, or what. But I think in modern figures at least, we should expect figures to identify to species.

Of course, it also varies with the group in question. Arthropods often seem more generalized than most birds, for example

Thanks Sean!

Should I follow it and open a topic to discuss the beaver species? I can start moving the undetermined ones to the generic beaver page and we change it according to what we find later:

- AAA: marked Beaver, they are generic beavers since they intend to be used for both species;
- Albert Heijn: It belongs to a series of European animals so Eurasian beaver;
- Auburn: I think it is safe to tell it is a North American one;
- Bullyland: They show mostly with European animals but I can't tell;
- CollectA: it is also hard to tell although most of the original CollectA woodland models represented European species;
- Eikoh: marketed just as beaver;
- Hausser: again likely Eurasian beaver but how to be sure?;
- Hartung: how to tell?;
- Learning Resources: It belongs to a little set of 5 Forest animals, fox and moose can be from bothh sides of the Atlantic but the owl is clearly the American species and the bear is an American black bear so it seems to be safe to identify it as an North American beaver;
- Lineol: Much likely an Eurasian considering the tradition of the brand but how to be sure?;
- Marx: It is a North American beaver;
- Mojö Fun: I don't know;
- Nayab: Those are also to be used as convenient to the custommer company, though, the larger model which works as reference to the smaller ones, is marked Castor fiber which is the scientific name of the Eurasian beaver. Ironically, Wild Republic use it for a North American fauna themed polybag;
- Papo: Looks a lot a North American as it was mentioned but Papo marketed it as beaver;
- Play Visions: it is from a North American wildlife set;
- Safari Ltd: The standard sized model is marketed as a North American beaver and the tube sized ones are part of North American fauna themed tubes;
- Schleich: 1st and 3rd beavers show mixed with animals from different continents, the 2nd version from 2013 is presented into the then called Wildlife America series;
- Wild Republic/K&M, All known figures are devoted to North American fauna and they have never  introduced a beaver in European themed sets;
- Yowies: These are usually marketed up to the species level and both species were covered;

Roger wrote:

I have to acknowledge my share of blame in identifying some figures at a very early stage of the Wiki. The "old" pages for "Incertae Sedis" went largely unnoticed, and figures of common animals such as beavers, hedgehogs, otters, were often identified in a generic manner, leaving species pages practically empty. I myself assumed that unidentified hedgehogs would be common hedgehogs, just as unidentified foxes were always assumed to be red foxes, even though these are easier to identify. The same happened with beavers; being European, I assumed that most unidentified ones would be European beavers, and in this case, not only is it very difficult to distinguish the species, but determining which one is the most common depends a lot on the geographical perspective.
The Wiki has evolved; now there are many figures listed and a more complete structure, and I believe it is now possible to relegate these undetermined models to a level that corresponds to a more generic identification. For example, AAA brand beavers are figures to be used as both European and American beavers and do not require a precise identification unless, through discussion, we can identify some subtle characteristic that distinguishes it as one of the species. Others, even if not identified as species, we can infer through the theme of the set or series. But even in the case of beavers, there are very difficult situations to determine. While it's true that Papo's forest animals range between the new and old worlds, it's also true that Bullyland, despite having some North American species, has always clearly favored species from European forests.
Interestingly, if I remember correctly, I was one of the people who argued that the Papo figure could be a North American beaver and may have used the posture as an argument. It's It's not true that European beavers never adopt this posture occasionally, but it is much more common and typical in American beavers. Perhaps we can even open discussion topics in this section about these common unidentified animals instead of discussing them in this topic, risking losing track of the main thread.

One must remember that the STS community is very very small on a world basis, and that are probably many many people who use TAI as a reference who aren't on STS (or even ATF or DTF) and therefore may not be familiar with the internal discussions on this forum. For things where the ID can be ambiguous (beavers, gorillas, etc.) it is probably best to keep things generic.

That being said, a collector can choose to have it represent whatever they want in their personal collections, and I am inclined to call the Papo beaver an American just because it's better than any of the 'known' American beavers out there

I understand and appreciate the opinion. In fact, the Wiki has always been crafted with collectors in mind. That's the reason why we've created so many galleries instead of lists, as the former requires four times the effort.
However, it's challenging to explain the countless situations and challenges we encounter as editors. As much as we want to establish rules and make everything as uniform and coherent as possible, different situations call for different solutions, and this isn't easy to explain to those who don't edit regularly.
Let me give four different situations. Hippopotami, foxes, hedgehogs and beavers are often marketed with generic names.:
- Hippos are rarely or never marketed as common hippopotamuses but they are relatively easy to identify. So, if we create a rule where we should let it at the generic level it is marketed, we would list all the common hippos as generic hippos and it doesn't make sense.
- Foxes, some foxes are marketed as red foxes but also a good number of red foxes are just marketed as foxes. Contrarily to hippos, those are not so easy to identify, there are a few fox species which look like red foxes, but why would I list them as generic foxes if I know they're red foxes?
- Hedgehogs, there are several hedgehog species, most of them are impossible to identify and most of the figures are just marketed as hedgehogs. Aren't they supposed to be common hedgehogs, what's the chance they're representing other species? Often, when they represent other species, they are marketed at the species level. So why to keep the Common hedgehog page empty?
- Beavers, these are a different situation, a generic beaver figure can easily be any of the two species and both are popular and common. We really don't have to choose if we are not sure what species it is supposed to represent. I moved the generic ones to the beaver page, now I hope someone checks which ones have a bacground which justifies to put it back to species pages. Namely the vintage ones.

I could give you plenty other examples and they all require different solutions. Just a last one which will show that it is quite boring if we use the rule of the generic names.
We know loads of butterfly figures which are not identified to the species level, often they are just butterflies. If with your help and others, we had not identified many of them, how would we list these figures?

TAW is so complex and ambitious for the little number of editors that while relisting the beavers to the generic page, I noticed that now I don't know where to put the Schleich beavers on Schleich series since I used the continents layout they adopted some years ago. It was a huge effort to relist all these Schleich figures in different series and now they are not dividing in continents anymore and even working hardly on TAW these days, I have no energy or motivation to list all these continent series back to a single wildlife series. We don't have a way to sort the tables automatically, we have to copy and paste line by line checking if everything is sorted correctly. The problem is that the Schleich wildlife series is absolutely huge and it can take several weeks of persistent editing job.

So, letting it divided into continents, where do i put the 1st and 3rd Schleich beavers?

This model is listed as a Limousin.For the following reasons I think it should be moved to Brown Swiss or Brauvieh.
Her conformation is typical of a dairy animal not a beef animal
Her colouring is too dark for a Limousin
She has a dark nose and a white nose and eye rings which are seen in Brown Swiss.Limousin don't have this,they only have shading and also their nose is pink.

I agree Taylor but do we know the official identification Schleich gave to it? Apparently this identification was obtained from this website which is considered a trustable one.
By the way, is it a new color for this Holstein cow?

Thanks for the link,very interesting site.I can't see on it that its a Limousin but the little tan coloured calf is certainly more like a Limousin.
The Holstein certainly looks like the model and again this is why I would think that the above version looks more like a Brown Swiss especially if using the Holstein model as the basis.

Taos wrote:

Thanks for the link,very interesting site.I can't see on it that its a Limousin but the little tan coloured calf is certainly more like a Limousin.
The Holstein certainly looks like the model and again this is why I would think that the above version looks more like a Brown Swiss especially if using the Holstein model as the basis.

Yes, it completely supports your opinion that the sculpt is completely wrong for a Limousin. Though, if the idea of Schleich was effectively to make a Limousin cow just repainting a Holstein, it has to be listed as a Limousin... or better, a lazymousin . However, I'm not sure it is an official identification. I can also list it just as a cow. When I bought my Saler's, I've seen the Papo Limousin and I absolutely loved it. Though, I don't want to start an adventure with cows now.

There is a problem with Schleich 14860 Indian Rhinoceros Baby, it's a different model from the Schleich 42428 Indian Rhinoceros baby

Susanne I'm going to delete this sentence: Also available in Schleich Boxed sets of Wild Life item Schleich 42428 Indian Rhinoceros baby

I would call this a very subtle pareidolia effect. Despite the figures being more different than they appear at first glance, I would say that many of us didn't realize the figures were different only due to expectation. It's easy to assume that the brand would use the same mold for both models. In this case, I have to commend Schleich for introducing alternative figures that can work beautifully together.

I think as you advised to list it just as a cow as we can't definitely say its a Brown Swiss or a Limousin.
This Yowie is listed as a Cape Buffalo and its a Water Buffalo.

Toymany Mini Arctic set lynx: Canadian or Eurasian ?

I think you did it correctly placing as an unidentified lynx, though, the set asks for a Canada lynx it it was not the penguin. About the gull, I think it is marketed as a glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus) which is found in the Arctic and the reindeer is marketed as a caribou but that's just a detail, I guess.

The Gull is Glaucous now

Taos wrote:

This Yowie is listed as a Cape Buffalo and its a Water Buffalo.

That's a fact, those horns surely fit better an Asian water buffalo but apparently it is listed as an African buffalo in every Yowie collector website I found. I don't know which species name can be found on the paper. The figure is quite unrealistic but Asian works better than African. I'd love to have feedback about what to do with it since it is one of those things I don't really know what to do.

Species water buffalo
Marketed as African buffalo

Kikimalou wrote:

Species water buffalo
Marketed as African buffalo

OK, I did it and renamed the page too. If anyone has the aper, it would be useful to put a picture of it too.

This set is missing a few cats. Unfortunately, none were given breeds. I don't know the best way to distinguish them, maybe by color and posture?

Sitting Gray Shorthair


Brown and Black Shorthair (or maybe Tortoiseshell Shorthair)


Black and White Shorthair


Arching Back Gray Shorthair

Jill, I listed them on TAW just shorthair and pose,
I don't know their breeds, they're all now on European shorthair page but it can be fixed easily.
They're now 13 of 12, could you check what is wrong?

It's very weird because the black and white cat which isn't pictured with the set anywhere was included in both my versions of this set (which came together) instead of the rex, which I had to seek out separately. So I included the black and white here, but maybe it shouldn't be since it's not listed on the Nayab site. I'm not sure what the answer to this little riddle is.

Jill wrote:

It's very weird because the black and white cat which isn't pictured with the set anywhere was included in both my versions of this set (which came together) instead of the rex, which I had to seek out separately. So I included the black and white here, but maybe it shouldn't be since it's not listed on the Nayab site. I'm not sure what the answer to this little riddle is.

OK, so in my opinion they both should be listed there. Some different things could have happened. A wrong assortment was pictured. The picture is right but they updated the assortment with a different cat figure. One of the cats belong to another Nayab set and there are a good number of sets from other brands, which mix figures from different Nayab sets. Those assortments on Nayab webpage are just indicative, the customer company is the one who decides how to sort them. So, if we ever find that one of these cats belongs to another official Nayabe set, we move it to the right place.

Papo 51138 Black and White Sow and piglet are listed on the Swabian-Hall Swine page.
Papo more than likely wanted to represent the "Pie Noir du Pays Basque" breed rather than a German breed.

Kikimalou wrote:

Papo 51138 Black and White Sow and piglet are listed on the Swabian-Hall Swine page.
Papo more than likely wanted to represent the "Pie Noir du Pays Basque" breed rather than a German breed.

Every time I try to identify a figure from Papo Farm series, I go through the same exercise and think it makes a lot of sense. However, in this case, it seems to me that the brand was inspired by models that Schleich had released a few years earlier. The reality is that the brand wanted to offer a different color for its pigs without aiming to represent a specific breed, but I really believe they were inspired by the aforementioned Schleich models, such is the resemblance to the traditional pattern of SwabianHall pigs, much more than what is observed with the Basques.

Rogério, Papo is a French brand. Here we don't know what this "obscure breed (for us) from Baden-Württemberg" known as Swabian-Hall Swine is.
Here, a white and black pig is either a "Pie noir du Pays basque" or a "Cul noir limousin". The Basque is a famous breed known for its Kintoa ham, and the Papo resembles this species.
It also resembles the Swabian-Hall Swine because the two species are so similar.
We don't know if Papo wanted to imitate Schleich, but we do know that Papo has produced quite a few French breeds and probably never heard about Swabian-Hall Swine.

Kikimalou wrote:

Rogério, Papo is a French brand. Here we don't know what this "obscure breed (for us) from Baden-Württemberg" known as Swabian-Hall Swine is.
Here, a white and black pig is either a "Pie noir du Pays basque" or a "Cul noir limousin". The Basque is a famous breed known for its Kintoa ham, and the Papo resembles this species.
It also resembles the Swabian-Hall Swine because the two species are so similar.
We don't know if Papo wanted to imitate Schleich, but we do know that Papo has produced quite a few French breeds and probably never heard about Swabian-Hall Swine.

I understand, it makes sense to me as I commented and maybe this time I'm being myself a little Schleichcentric. Though, the fact Papo extended the rear dark patch up to the middle of the body, with dark back legs with a relatively narrow white area on the front legs and adjacent body area, is very typical for the German breed while the French breed seems to have a shorter and more undefined rear patch often with all legs white. I see there are different color layouts among specimens but I was trying to find a sort of pattern.
Since these pigs are not identified and there's no consensus about the breed, maybe the best is to move them to the regular pig page.