Ikimon NTC MICRO - Nature of Satoyama

Japanese weasel

Great, thanks a lot!

It's a Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica), as the one already produced by Kaiyodo earlier, but much smaller, at the perfect scale for me and for that it's in my wishlist since december 2020 (when it was announced in this forum). Very wished for me along with the copper pheasant. Loon offered both for sale but ignored my message and sold them to other buyer. I hope to have another chance of get them, probably I will ask Brett in a future purchase.

Bonnie wrote:

What a wonderful looking set- I'd love to know if this brand releases any dogs ever! And there is a fox for Roger there!
Thank you so much for sharing- I love the Japanese style!

Yes, a tiny fox and a racoon dog too. Actually it is a very interesting set of micro figures.

My favorite thing about this set (which, btw, I have one complete and one broken to sell individually for sale here in the US) is that the (brown being my preference) hare scales almost fairly nicely (It's of course really too large but still...) with the Kaiyodo Sika deer from the CQ Japanese mammals set so they make for a nifty little display together.

Brett

Pardofelis wrote:

It's a Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica), as the one already produced by Kaiyodo earlier, but much smaller, at the perfect scale for me and for that it's in my wishlist since december 2020 (when it was announced in this forum). Very wished for me along with the copper pheasant. Loon offered both for sale but ignored my message and sold them to other buyer. I hope to have another chance of get them, probably I will ask Brett in a future purchase.

Isidro... Kaiyodo never produced a Siberian weasel...

Pardofelis wrote:

It's a Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica), as the one already produced by Kaiyodo earlier, but much smaller, at the perfect scale for me and for that it's in my wishlist since december 2020 (when it was announced in this forum). Very wished for me along with the copper pheasant. Loon offered both for sale but ignored my message and sold them to other buyer. I hope to have another chance of get them, probably I will ask Brett in a future purchase.

According to the booklet, it's a Japanese weasel (Mustela itatsi). There is also one in Kaiyodo Chocoegg Japanese Animals 4.

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Kikimalou wrote:

Pardofelis wrote:

It's a Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica), as the one already produced by Kaiyodo earlier, but much smaller, at the perfect scale for me and for that it's in my wishlist since december 2020 (when it was announced in this forum). Very wished for me along with the copper pheasant. Loon offered both for sale but ignored my message and sold them to other buyer. I hope to have another chance of get them, probably I will ask Brett in a future purchase.

Isidro... Kaiyodo never produced a Siberian weasel...

Yes it produced it, you can see in the photo below your message. Both are Siberian weasels (Mustela sibirica). (you can add that they represent the Japanese subspecies of Siberian weasel if you want).

@Brettjn that sounds interesting! That broken set, includes the Siberian weasel and copper pheasant? If so, maybe you could reserve both for me in a future purchase if they are cheap enough?

Thanks everyone. If the Ikimon booklet says that it is a Japanese weasel, then I think it should be listed as that on TAW. According to Wikipedia, there is some discussion whether the Japanese weasel is a subspecies of the Siberian weasel or a separate species, but in either case, Japanese weasel is more precise.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Thanks everyone. If the Ikimon booklet says that it is a Japanese weasel, then I think it should be listed as that on TAW. According to Wikipedia, there is some discussion whether the Japanese weasel is a subspecies of the Siberian weasel or a separate species, but in either case, Japanese weasel is more precise.

Sure Roger, to avoid these discussions for TAW once they vary a lot with author and also among collectors, we are using what English Wikipedia is assuming.. it is not the most accurate scientific source but they use the same language and phylosophy as TAW and it allows us to work convergently as editors. So, for TAW, it is undisputably a Japanese weasel in full species.
On forum discussion, it is up to each member, I believe Isidro means that the Japanese weasel is too closely related with the Siberian weasel that in his opinion there is no justification to give it full species status. Thus, it is for Isidro a subspecies of Siberian weasel. Here we can't talk about wrongly marketed figure because I don't believe it is easy to distinguish these two as figures. Though, even if it was marketed as a subspecies, it should have its own page on TAW, eventually embed on the species (Siberian weasel) page.

[quote="Roger"]

rogerpgvg wrote:

means that the Japanese weasel is too closely related with the Siberian weasel

Actually, rather than just "closely related", Japanese weasel is part of Siberian weasel. In the same way than a Sumatran tiger is a tiger.

I thought that for TAW it would generally be most useful if we list it as the (sub)species used by the company that produced it. I feel it is useful to have this information, as it tells us something about how the company conceptualised the figure; it tells us something about the history of the figure. When people search for it, they may also search for the species that the company thought it was because that's how it appears in the catalogues and how it is sold.

Of course in some cases, the company is clearly wrong, for example, Schleich calling an Afghan hound a greyhound. In such a case, we probably don't want to list the dog as a greyhound on the TAW breeds/(sub)species page, but I feel it would still be informative to make clear on the individual figure page that Schleich incorrectly listed it as a greyhound.

Does that make sense or am I out of line with what most TAW editors do? Perhaps I am just arguing for the obvious.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I thought that for TAW it would generally be most useful if we list it as the (sub)species used by the company that produced it. I feel it is useful to have this information, as it tells us something about how the company conceptualised the figure; it tells us something about the history of the figure. When people search for it, they may also search for the species that the company thought it was because that's how it appears in the catalogues and how it is sold.

Of course in some cases, the company is clearly wrong, for example, Schleich calling an Afghan hound a greyhound. In such a case, we probably don't want to list the dog as a greyhound on the TAW breeds/(sub)species page, but I feel it would still be informative to make clear on the individual figure page that Schleich incorrectly listed it as a greyhound.

Does that make sense or am I out of line with what most TAW editors do? Perhaps I am just arguing for the obvious.

It makes sense and that's the way we use to do. I love extreme examples like the extralarge Nayab maned wolf marked as "MEYERS ASPARAGUS", I can't conceive the idea of opening a page for this plant species and displaying a maned wolf there. Though, it should obviously be mentioned in its page. I continue thinking the Schleich dog is being marketed as windhund that is a sighthound and the Afghan hound is one of them. Also, an alternative name for Afghan hounds is Eastern grey hound. Out of curiousity, I will try to find how they're called in Afghanistan.
A perfect example for an obvious mistake of Schleich was when they marketed their emperor penguin chicks as king penguin chicks, something they fixed later.

Thanks, good to know we are all on the same page.

rogerpgvg wrote:

I thought that for TAW it would generally be most useful if we list it as the (sub)species used by the company that produced it.

That's great, tough there are also many examples of figures marketed with a generic name (for example "angelfish", "butterfly", etc) but clearly inspired in an exact species, and these are good to have community-identified in TAW :)