Mojö Fun 2020 Releases

This Chimp really is absolutely beautiful. I hope that it's not too large.

This was announced today:

It's a little hard to judge based on angle, but this is a good species for them to add. It seems they are trying to improve texture in their figures.

Not as crazy about this one. I feel there are much better examples of this species (Yujin, Kaiyodo, even Safari Ltd!)

bmathison1972 wrote:

Not as crazy about this one. I feel there are much better examples of this species (Yujin, Kaiyodo, even Safari Ltd!)

And also the one from Papo

It is impossible to judge from this angle. We can't see how flattened is the body and we cannot get correctly the proportions. They photographed it clearly to focus these red eyes and to give to it the look of a generic frog. I will wait for other angles to judge it.
Though, as I mentioned on their FB, it is hard to understand why with thousands of frog species, most brands chose this one. I know it is an emblematic species but there are many others that could attract the customers. Paradoxally, regarding frogs, Schleich was the most immaginative when they released a completely unexpected African reed frog that I missed stupidly.

387133 Emperor Scorpion

I could repeat my comment here about the frog but we have to understand that contrarily to the frog, this scorpion species is a kind of stereotype species. I also like the non exagerated style and the rich texture is an interesting variation over many previous releases from other companies.

Man this is more and more becoming the year for Blaine! 7 arthropods so far by major non-Japanese manufacturers!

Mojo did their FIRST arthropod this year (2019) with a very nice tarantula; I am happy they are continuing the trend.

The Emperor Scorpion looks very good. I'm wondering how large it will be.

Megaptera wrote:

The Emperor Scorpion looks very good. I'm wondering how large it will be.

the tarantula was pretty small!

Hopefully, after all I want to have some more Arthropods for my collection.

The 8th Mojö Fun figure being presented is this giraffe. Mojö claims it as based on a Masai giraffe but it looks more a Rothschild's giraffe to me. I wished I was right.

It looks a bit like a Masai because of the shape of its patches.

Megaptera wrote:

It looks a bit like a Masai because of the shape of its patches.

I mentioned it because of the lower legs being not blotched. It is good to know Mojö is doing it right.

the validity of giraffe species/subspecies/races is debatable. It's a giraffe. That's that. (and it's a nice one, btw).

I am hoping this one is 1:32 scale. Most giraffe figures are too large, but the Masai is the largest subspecies, so there is a reasonable chance with this one.

bmathison1972 wrote:

the validity of giraffe species/subspecies/races is debatable. It's a giraffe. That's that. (and it's a nice one, btw).

In 2016, researchers found out, that there are 4 Giraffe species: the Reticulated, the Northern, the Southern and the Masai one. They have remarkable genetical differences. But they still can interbreed.

Megaptera wrote:

bmathison1972 wrote:

the validity of giraffe species/subspecies/races is debatable. It's a giraffe. That's that. (and it's a nice one, btw).

In 2016, researchers found out, that there are 4 Giraffe species: the Reticulated, the Northern, the Southern and the Masai one. They have remarkable genetical differences. But they still can interbreed.

I am aware of that study, but I meant to say it is not overly well-accepted, yet (at least that was the impression I got...). Genetic differences are not enough in my opinion; needs to be backed by some morphological, ecological, and/or behavioral differences.

But sometimes it's only a genetical thing. For example the Southern Right Whale, the North Atlantic Right Whale and the North Pacific Right Whale. Today, they are distinct species, but morphological they are nearly the same. Sometimes the North Atlantic one is more bluish, the North Pacific one is a bit larger and the Southern one can have more white patches. But overall, they are morphological the same. Even scientific books often use the same image for all three species.

Megaptera wrote:

But sometimes it's only a genetical thing. For example the Southern Right Whale, the North Atlantic Right Whale and the North Pacific Right Whale. Today, they are distinct species, but morphological they are nearly the same. Sometimes the North Atlantic one is more bluish, the North Pacific one is a bit larger and the Southern one can have more white patches. But overall, they are morphological the same. Even scientific books often use the same image for all three species.

exactly but they are also strictly geographically isolated. Also, the right whales have been genetically isolated for a lot longer time (upwards of 12 million years), whereas the giraffes have been separated for only 1 million, on average.

Bringing genetics into taxonomy is a challenging thing. Trust me, I myself have described new species of insects and have had to interpret work based on molecular data. You cannot simply blindly accept the molecular differences. One must look at the 'big picture' and take perceived genetic isolation, morphology, ecology, behavior, and zoogeography into consideration too. There seems to be some push-back on that 2016 giraffe paper, so I would not take their results as definitive.

Yes, it's always challenging :)
I've read that some researchers also want to change the Polar Bear into a subspecies of Brown Bear.
I know that identifying the species level of an Insect can be really tough. Even some bug species make some mistakes in choosing the right female.
I think they decided to split the Giraffe into 4 species to guarantee the survival of Giraffes in Africa. The extinction of a species seems to be more cruel than the extinction of a subspecies.

Blaine I'm falling in love with you!!!!!!
Finally I find somebody with good judgement and use of brain about how taxonomy should be (or better said, should remain) :) Every one of your words could have been written by me (except that I didn't described new species)

You, like me, are a person with logic and knowlegde for use the a reasonable taxonomy instead the modern nonsensic absurd one that everybody applies to absolutely every taxon of life on Earth now. We're a critically endangered species almost extinct due to competence with the much more dominant "accept blindly the molecular religion taxonomy" kind of people

I also would add that classic and reasonable old taxonomy was made only by scientifics, and that means extremely exhaustive studies. Modern crazy taxonomy is made by informatics, as the only thing one must know is to manage a computer program for make a PCR analysis

Well this is a leak of the Mojo Dinosaurs for 2020

But Mojo is not as awful as Schleich when it comes to treating people for leaking there stuff now.........are they?




IF so then i will take these down

Is that lime green baryonyx(?) new? Hard to tell with the photo being a little blurry.