The TNG Wooly mammoth: A walkaround by Kikimalou

An emblematic figure of prehistory, almost as much as the Tyrannosaurus, the Wooly mammoth has survived many extinctions in the toy world.
The first versions are probably those in lead by CBG Mignot and in composition by Chialù. These two rarities are now so rare that they are snapped up at exorbitant prices in auction rooms.
Since then, from Marx through Starlux, Invicta and up to modern companies, it has been part of all the "Dinosaurs" series.
Even though brands like Starlux, CollectA, Safari Ltd and of course Eofauna offer or have offered a wider range of "prehistoric elephants", the Wooly Mammoth remains the undisputed champion.
The TNG company is no exception to the rule and today offers, alongside a very beautiful Stegodon (a walkaround [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]), its version of the Wooly mammoth.

Like PNSO, TNG sale its creations perfectly protected in pretty boxes and is aimed at children aged 8 and over. That's my case…  

Larger than its Starlux and Invicta ancestors, this newcomer is on the other hand smaller than the current standard mammoths, such as the favorite Kinto or the famous Carnegie. (1/25 scale)

Is it compatible with Eofauna productions? Almost...
With a Height at shoulders of just over 10cm, he misses the famous 1/35th if we consider a maximum Height at shoulders of 3.4m for a Wooly mammoth.
We can consider that its scale varies from 1/27 to 1/34 for an adult. It is therefore perfectly suited for a 1/32 collection.

But let's drop the measuring instruments to talk about the beast itself: In a few words, it is very very beautiful.  

All I can say is that I wish TNG will continue quality production in the years to come.

I hope my photos will convince you.  

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With my only 1/30 Pleistocene citizen, the Kaiyodo Smilodon fatalis
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With Carnegie and Kinto
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With a big 1/30 Asian elephant bull (Papo)
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With the Mojo African bush elephant bull (1/32 to 1/39)
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With the Eofauna Steppe mammoth (1/35 to 1/41)
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With the Eofauna Konobelodon
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At last with some friends
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Nice figure

Congrats, Kiki, very nice figure! Although I don´t collect prehistoric creatures, mine mammoth is on the way... This figure exactly matches my idea of what a mammoth should look like (except for the too contrasting painted nails...). Please can you share the figure product number provided on the box (e.g. T0000)?

Of course Jaromir, it is the T4001

Keep on not collecting prehistoric creatures, it's good to have rules and not follow them

I have been dying to add these TNG models to my herds... simply gorgeous figure my friend. May I ask where you got yours? And what brand are the caribou and musk ox?

The Caribou and muck ox are Kaiyodo from the Wild Rush sub arctic set.

I bought mine on ebay from La-Na-Time-Shop but I'ma little bit disappointed for now, I paid for two models and only one came to my house, the Stegodon is nowhere to be find. I wrote to the seller and I'm waiting his answer.

I have been looking at that seller on ebay too. When I was inquiring for combined shipping they said something about the stegodon not being available yet. As we have seen it on forum, I think they meant that it isn't in stock at their store yet. But please let us know what they say, as I was going to order from them sometime.

Your wild rush figures are beautiful.

Great photos and comparisons. Good to highlight this lesser known brand. Sorry, just a picky thing: I think it's unlikely that African bush elephants can be up to 4 m, or at least it is extremely rare. I'd say the Mojo African elephant is more like 1/22 - 1/33 scale: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I was wanting to see it. I like how it works with the EoFauna models and it sseems we have a Wooly to go with them nicely. Wolly Mammoths are defintely the most popular prehistoric non dinosaur figures.Oh, the comparison with the Smilodon is scary, look how those tusks look huge.

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

I have been looking at that seller on ebay too. When I was inquiring for combined shipping they said something about the stegodon not being available yet. As we have seen it on forum, I think they meant that it isn't in stock at their store yet. But please let us know what they say, as I was going to order from them sometime.

Your wild rush figures are beautiful.

I got my answer just right now : Dear customer,
TNG Huanghe Flumen Stegodon has just been completed, so we haven't sent it yet. We will send it to you within 3 days, and we will provide you with a new tracking number after sending it.

I'll tell you what happens next  

rogerpgvg wrote:

Great photos and comparisons. Good to highlight this lesser known brand. Sorry, just a picky thing: I think it's unlikely that African bush elephants can be up to 4 m, or at least it is extremely rare. I'd say the Mojo African elephant is more like 1/22 - 1/33 scale: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

As you have already noticed, I have no problem talking about picky things.  
The Mojo is a wild African bush elephant bull, according to the Kingdon book and to the data found everywhere on the net, mature bulls are 3 to 4 meter tall at shoulders, sometimes only 3.96m. According to my mesureing tape this morning, the Mojo is nearly 10cm at shoulders so I was wrong it scales is more 1/30 to 1/40.
If it was a female, according female height at shoulders is between 2.4 and 3.4 meters, the scale should be from 1/24 to 1/34.
The Mojo is obviously a bull.
I chose to invite him to live in my 1/35 savannah like an average Bull, with a height at the withers of 3.5m. I could have chosen to install it at 1/40 floor as a maximum size male but the place was already taken by the Eikoh.

Roger wrote:

I was wanting to see it. I like how it works with the EoFauna models and it sseems we have a Wooly to go with them nicely. Wolly Mammoths are defintely the most popular prehistoric non dinosaur figures.Oh, the comparison with the Smilodon is scary, look how those tusks look huge.

It works with them if you aren't too picky The poor mammoth doesn't reach the 1/35 floor... I can assure you that it has been itching since he arrived. I even wonder if I couldn't install all these beautiful people at 1/32 and drop the 1/30 and 1/35.
It's not that simple, there would still be some 50 animals that would risk getting stuck at 1/30 or 1/35, that's way too many.
The photo of the smilodon and the mammoth perfectly sums up the joys and pangs in my heart that I experience in presenting them by scale. It's great to visualize the two animals side by side and it's sad for me not to let the reindeer and the musk ox join them because of a few millimeters less.

Kikimalou wrote:

As you have already noticed, I have no problem talking about picky things.  

Great, now you got me started . I don’t want to spoil this topic, so I refer to the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Even though Wikipedia says (based on a source) that woolly mammoths were between 2.6 and 3.4 meters in shoulder height, a better, more recent source (Larramendi 2016: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] gives a bigger range, and estimates that the largest known specimen (the Siegsdorf specimen) was about 3.49 m in shoulder height (and about 8.2 tonnes in weight), so this figure may not actually fall out of beinf 1/35 in scale.

Moldovan0731 wrote:

Even though Wikipedia says (based on a source) that woolly mammoths were between 2.7 and 3.4 meters in shoulder height, a better, more recent source (Larramendi 2016: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] gives a bigger range, and estimates that the largest known specimen (the Siegsdorf specimen) was about 3.49 m in shoulder height (and about 8.2 tonnes in weight), so this figure may not actually fall out of beinf 1/35 in scale.

I won"t say I read completely the PDF but ast least I read the M. primigenius part, I don't see the Siegsdorf specimen mentioned there, if you could tell me where that would help me.

On the other hand, what I read there is that for the large mammoth humeri, there is a big doubt that they correspond to the species M. trogontherii rather than to M. primigenius.
Even at 3.49m, with a height at the withers between 10 and 10.1cm, the TNG is close to 1/35 without reaching it.
I concede that it is played with few things and I of course do not prevent anyone from deciding that they have collected a very large Woolly Mammoth at 1/35, myself included.

Kikimalou wrote:

Moldovan0731 wrote:

Even though Wikipedia says (based on a source) that woolly mammoths were between 2.7 and 3.4 meters in shoulder height, a better, more recent source (Larramendi 2016: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] gives a bigger range, and estimates that the largest known specimen (the Siegsdorf specimen) was about 3.49 m in shoulder height (and about 8.2 tonnes in weight), so this figure may not actually fall out of beinf 1/35 in scale.

I won"t say I read completely the PDF but ast least I read the M. primigenius part, I don't see the Siegsdorf specimen mentioned there, if you could tell me where that would help me.

On the other hand, what I read there is that for the large mammoth humeri, there is a big doubt that they correspond to the species M. trogontherii rather than to M. primigenius.
Even at 3.49m, with a height at the withers between 10 and 10.1cm, the TNG is close to 1/35 without reaching it.
I concede that it is played with few things and I of course do not prevent anyone from deciding that they have collected a very large Woolly Mammoth at 1/35, myself included.

It's at the end of the PDF among the skeletals.

Moldovan0731 wrote:

It's at the end of the PDF among the skeletals.

Yes thank you

Nevertheless, what does Mr. Larramendi want to demonstrate with this essay? The volumetric method, provided that the models are technically correct, is superior to the allometric one.
and what does he say about Woolly Mammoths?

"The renowned Woolly mammoth, M. primigenius, was probably the most successful mammoth that occupied the whole of Eurasia and North America. The European form was considerably larger than North Siberian specimens, surpassing 6 tonnes in body mass and 315 cm at the shoul- ders on average, with particulary big specimens exceeding 8 tonnes in mass (Apendix 1: AE, SOM: table 2). The northern Woolly mammoths were about the same height as modern Asian elephants, although proportionally a bit heavier (Table . The last M. primigenius that survived in Wrangel Island was of similar size; a pelvis measuring 1300 mm in breadth (Tikhonov et al. 2003) indicates that bulls approached 280 cm at the shoulders and 4.5 tonnes in body mass. Three tibiae from the Wiesbaden Museum collection (AL personal observation) and 13 from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Lomolino et al. 2013) are labelled as M. primigenius. Their lengths easily surpassed 700 mm, indicating individuals ex- ceeding 330 cm and approaching 350 cm at the shoulders; so the species identification for these bones should be treated with caution, as many of them might well have belonged to other species such as M. trogontherii (probably female individuals). A particularly large tibia (RGM ST445385) labelled as M. primigenius measured 870 mm in length (Lomolino et al. 2013). This is hardly possible and may have belonged to a fully-grown M. trogontherii bull close to 400 cm at the shoulders. A humerus identified as M. pri- migenius has the greatest length of 1225 mm (Christiansen 2004), indicating a shoulder height of over 375 cm. Again it is very possible that the humerus was erroneously cata- logued. Another enormous partial skull from Flaminia was described as M. primigenius (Palombo 1972), but according to enamel thickness, lamellar frequency, and size, it is more likely to have been M. trogontherii. On the other hand, the giant M. primigenius fraasi from Steinheim (Dietrich 1912) was very large, it attained a shoulder height in the flesh of 389 cm, and a body mass of about 9.5 tonnes (SOM: table 2). The relatively low body weight for its shoulder height is due to its pelvis being extremely narrow, only 1400 mm in breadth (Schmidtgen 1926), although it may lack the iliac crest epiphysis (see Dietrich 1912: fig. 20), and the total breadth would in fact have been around 1500 mm including the epiphysis. At any rate, the ribs of this specimen were very long, so the belly was probably considerably wider than the pelvic region, unlike the rest of the mammoths. The Steinheim mammoth seems to be an intermediate between M. trogontherii and M. primigenius, and, according to some authors (Lister and Stuart 2010), this specimen should be referred to as M. trogontherii. According to others, it should just be placed as M. primigenius (Dick Mol, personal com- munication 2011)."

In short, it does not seem to me that its purpose is to demonstrate that the M. primigenius exceeded 3.4m at shoulders.

Kikimalou wrote:

The Caribou and muck ox are Kaiyodo from the Wild Rush sub arctic set.

I bought mine on ebay from La-Na-Time-Shop but I'ma little bit disappointed for now, I paid for two models and only one came to my house, the Stegodon is nowhere to be find. I wrote to the seller and I'm waiting his answer.

Saarlooswolfhound wrote:

I have been looking at that seller on ebay too. When I was inquiring for combined shipping they said something about the stegodon not being available yet. As we have seen it on forum, I think they meant that it isn't in stock at their store yet. But please let us know what they say, as I was going to order from them sometime.

Your wild rush figures are beautiful.

Just to let you know Paige that La-na-time shop is trustable, the TNG Stegodon is at home now, a walkaround will follow

Very beautiful walkaround of a very realistic model who fits rather well with the Eofauna Steppe mammoth and solme others. I love its tuskes (shape and colours!) Would you have the Bullyland one for size comparison pic?

Great mammoth! I would consider this one but not too long ago I got the Carnegie version cheap and there is no need to replace it!

Caracal wrote:

Very beautiful walkaround of a very realistic model who fits rather well with the Eofauna Steppe mammoth and solme others. I love its tuskes (shape and colours!) Would you have the Bullyland one for size comparison pic?

Alas no Alain, I let my Bullyland left home a few years ago.

bmathison1972 wrote:

Great mammoth! I would consider this one but not too long ago I got the Carnegie version cheap and there is no need to replace it!

I understand, the Carnegie was my favorite Woolly mammoth until this one.

I'd never heard of TNG before but this model truly is stunning and your wonderful photos present it in all its glory! It's certainly a joy to be able to have models as beautiful as this in plastic!

Thank you Lilias, yes it is a joy, I'm a lucky macaque