Species identification topic

I agree with Caracal

My educated guess is that is was supposed to be a hyena...

Not really a species but rather a breed. I wanted to know what breed could be the "Black Faced Ram" from Mojo.
There are missing pictures on TAW: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

As I have the possibility to get the Bullyland Scottish Black Face, I wanted to be sure if Mojo isn´t presenting the same breed - maybe we have an sheep-expert here? :)

Pardofelis wrote:

These figures are for the most part too generic for give them a species ID. However you can use them as a species of your convenience based on the appareance of the model and how popular are the respective species. If the brand is Europe-based I would go easily for European species. For example:

Grasshopper: an example of totally green grasshopper that is not uncommon in Europe is Chorthippus jucundus, even when the brand doesn't really pretend to represent any species.

Tarantula: you can assign it to almost any species of tarantula, plus to some non-mygalomorph spiders. For example, an equally chunky black compact spider would be a female Eresus, that is non-mygalomorph (excusing the too long palpi).

Centipede: the only very clear one. With these colours it can't be nothing other than Scolopendra hardwickei.

Scorpion: 98% of chances of represent the extremely well known Pandinus imperator. Black colour and thick pincers are in favour of this.

Stag beetle: the famous European one, Lucanus cervus. Tough not pretended by the brand, with these relatively short, evenly curved mandibles it could pass as Lucanus cervus f. capreolus (minor form of the male). If the brand is American I would go for Lucanus elaphus.

Water beetle: clearly hydrophilid (not dytiscid) and hence 99% of chances of being the biggest and by far most well known of the hundreds of species of this family: Hydrophilus piceus. Appareance matches too.

Ladybug: the easiest one to ID and you got it, Coccinella septempunctata.

Unknown: clearly a cockroach, you can use either as a nymph of Blatta orientalis or a nymph of Periplaneta americana, being both species the most well known of all roaches. Being pink, the colour scheme agrees slightly more with the rusty-coloured American cockroach than with the black Oriental cockroach.

Some corrections/suggestions:

1. Lucanus cervus f. capreolus is not a thing. Lucanus capreolus is a valid North American species. It is morphologically quite different from L. cervus (and I have seen both, in the wild and on pins)

2. the water beetle is clearly a dytiscid (it has filiform antennae longer than the palps; hydrophilids have clubbed antennae that are shorter than the palps)

3. last one (pink), as I already mentioned this is most-certainly a springtail in the Entomobryomorpha (maybe Tomoceridae), due to the terminal antennal segment being long and unsegmented and there is a structure (possible furcula) poking out at the rear.

Some corrections/suggestions to your corrections/suggestions:

1. Lucanus cervus f. capreolus is a thing. It's the designation of the "minor" males of Lucanus cervus, those that are smaller and have not so enlarged head and mandibles. I don't know if it's still a valid name, as I learnt it in an antique natural history encyclopedia.

2. The water beetle is clearly an hydrophilid (it has clubbed antennae shorter than the palps, dytiscids have filiform antennae that are longer than the palps).

3. last one (pink), this time nothing is sure, but looks like a springtail as much as a cockroach. What you take as a long terminal segment probably is just the "remaining" of the antennae, that should be segmented but just by laziness or whatever is not. Terminal segments of springtails would be rather cylindrical than tapered and only very very few species have it so long compared with remaining segments. The structure that you took as furcula is wrongly sized and shaped for a springtail furcula, that should be much bigger and always hidden under the body. The figure also have cerci, that cockroaches have and springtails don't. Legs are clearly more likely from a cockroach than for a springtail (segments in tarsi are excessive in number for either group). But certainly body shape (not so flat), and shape of pronotum and head are much more springtail-like than corckroach-like. Being inaccurate for both groups, however, you may be right on this one.

the fact that you learned about capreolus from an antique book proves it's outdated. That book was probably assuming capreolus was a minor of cervus without knowing its origins. Anyway, you can't use the same Latin name for two different designations, and capreolus is a valid species in North America: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I have these figures. The water beetle is a dytiscid. The antennae are on the outside, the palps on the inside (as typically displayed with beetles). None of these appendages are clubbed. I have the figure (I have had it since 1999) and know it well :)

Ha! Learned something is outdated if is in an antique book? This means assume that all the knowledge of Mankind started in XXI century, and all previous knowledge is outdated. No, of course the book didn't assumed that. It's clearly the form capreolus of Lucanus cervus, and not the clearly different Lucanus capreolus, that is a North American species so it cannot be mistaken with the form capreolus of the European species.
Anyway, you can't use different Latin names for the same designation, and f. capreolus is a valid form in Europe. Lucanus capreolus is a different species, so I don't know why you mention it.

I don't have the figure but it's cleary enough to see the photo for make a unequivocal diangostic. This hydrophilid have the palpi in the correct position and shape (tough they have four segments instead just three), and the antennae (should be more clubbed, but it's a minor issue and difficult to sculpt in a figure) in incorrect position as they should be hidden to the sides of the head. Calling something that have the shape, position and structure of palpi as "antennae" would make it a dytiscid, but also you can then argue that this bug have not elytra but folded membranous wings and that is an hymenopteran. Both things would be equally false.

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I am by no means an expert on sheep but looking around I think if Mojo were trying to present a Scottish Blackface they would probably have given it horns since almost all Scottish Blackface have horns, they also almost always have black legs or partially black legs so I’d say Mojo was probably trying to represent another sheep breed. Hopefully you can get more than just my opinion on this since as I said I’m not an expert.

Edit: I did a little more searching and I found that on eBay you can find the ewe, ram, and lamb all listed as Scottish Blackface so I guess mojo was trying to make a Scottish Blackface and just didn’t do enough research:/ they’re very nice figures but I think the ram is probably the most accurate example of the breed between it and the ewe.
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Right this is where I come in!

The Scottish Blackface by Mojo are very lazy in my honest opinion, as they're just repaints from their generic white sheep. The ram wouldn't do well at representing the breed. I much prefer the Bullyland ewe in regards to Scottish Blackface.

Now on to the ewe and lamb. Both of these don't fit the Scottish Blackface breed whatsoever and I have them on my wishlist as mules (a cross between a Blue faced Leicester ram and a Swaledale ewe) and I own these sheep personally and many do look like the two figures.

Hopefully this helps you Isabella, and here are some of my mules from the summer [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Thank you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for your help :) I thought that they wanted to sell them as scottish breed, but looking in the catalogue, it only said "black-faced sheep".
Mine is looking different, when you have a look here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So could I use the Mojo ram for another breed? What are you saying?

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Adam should confirm but I believe he agrees with me that the Mojo Blackface sheep are not good representations of the Scottish Blackface and that the Bullyland represents the Scottish Blackface better. They also suggest the Mojo would work well as Mules instead:) Adam your sheep are beautiful and amazing btw:D

Yes, this is what I am trying to get across.

With you ram Duck Anch Amun, it would still be fine as a Scottish blackface however it isn't the best representation. If you want to get it more like a SB ram you will need black speckles on its legs and white speckles on its face, and more white around its eyes.

Hope this makes sense

.

Some considerations to your reply:
Scientific names can be direct from Latin or derived from Greek but in the last case they must be almost always latinized. Besides that, AFAIK it's correct to use the term "latin names" even in the cases where the epithets are not latinized (and in many cases they come from other languages too, many from local names in the native languages of the distribution area of the animal/plant).

More funny examples would be those with the name of the same animal with one epithet in Latin and the other in Greek meaning both the same. F. E: Cygnus olor, Equus caballus, Ursus arctos, Aquila (chrys)aetos....

I started before with the nomenclature thing: almost since newborn hence I also gained a lot of knowledge since this always interested me too. However, it was much later than you when I started with aquaculture of tropical fishes.

About the second part of your message: the DNA sequencing and molecular analyisis, it's a very unreliable method for sort the taxonomy of things, and given us hundreds of thousands of absolutely ridiculous, antiscientific and unacceptable results. It can be used, however, as a small tool that helps together with many others for understand the taxonomy, as it was used in the times where taxonomy was done by scientists, not by informatics that don't know nothing about biodiversity. The last phrase would be correct if put in past time instead in future time: hundreds of thousands of species received already a new scientific name since the Taxonomic Revolution that started gradually more or less with the century change, and that in 90% of the cases leaded to absolutely ridiculous stupid antiscientific taxonomy that is blindly accepted by people without capacity of criticism. And that incredibly idiotic taxonomy affects (damages) nomenclature too, of course.
DNA don't shows the truth, but sometimes if can help when used in combination with many other features, as true scientist always done in the last decades of past century with true scientific extremely exhaustive works that shows the real phylogeny of the animals (and other kingdoms).

The problem of descibing a taxon already described with previous name is not restricted to "decades before" but was especially intense during XVIII and XIX centuries and decreased gradually from then to now, still continuing but everytime in a lesser exent due to information being much more easily available worldwide. The drastic reduction on junior synonyms cames with the Internet era, and had nothing to see with the molecular analysis.

What fish species is this?
I painted it already white to get it repainted. I am considering to make it an golden dorado (Salminus brasiliensis), only the tail is not correct for this one.
Anyone suggestions?

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Well it have adipose fin, so it must be a characin. It doesn't matches in shape with any well known characin but you can custom as one that doesn't matches such as Salminus brasiliensis or maybe a tucanfish (that would fit the big scales). The presence of a double anal fin is a feature that none fish in the world have (cods and allies have two well separated anal fins of different shape, but they have three big dorsal fins too). Maybe it can pass as a damaged single anal fin.

It looks like they made the pelvic fins single, very peculiar. It works well enough as some kind of Astyanax tetra, just highly stylized.

Pardo is right in saying that the adipose says it must be a Characin, for the rest is is just a fantasyfish, just resambling the "common" type of fish which most people have in mind when they imagine a fish, or maybe they just ment to make a goldfish-type, but then the adipose shouldn't be there, but what do these makers know haha.

I know an ichthyologist, and I won't name names, who, when doing field work in Panama for the first time, turned to the rest of the group with a tetra in his hand and said, "This cyprinid has an adipose fin!" I'll let you count how many things are wrong with that.

CBG Mignot bird, sold a a Cormorant... any idea ?

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Certainly not cormorant-shaped, nor coloured. The sape is very good for a tropical pigeon. None matches exactly this colours but I think you can match it with some imperial pigeon or fruit dove.

Tiermann wrote:

11
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12
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13
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14
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15
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Thanks for any help you can provide :)

1and 2 are Black Crested Mangabeys.
3 is a Celebes Crested Macaque.
4 is a gorilla painted like a Common Chimpanzee
5, 11, and 12 are Red-faced Spider Monkeys.
6 is some species of surili.
7 is a Crab-eating Macaque.
8 is a Bornean Orangutan.
9 is a Hamadryas Baboon.
10 is an inaccurately colored Chacma Baboon.
13 is an inaccurately colored Proboscis Monkey.
14 is a generic monkey that cannot be confidently identified.
15 is a Mandrill.

Kikimalou wrote:

CBG Mignot bird, sold a a Cormorant... any idea ?

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This has the body shape of a falcon and the colors of some suboscine passerine.

Roy-Swetsie wrote:

What fish species is this?
I painted it already white to get it repainted. I am considering to make it an golden dorado (Salminus brasiliensis), only the tail is not correct for this one.
Anyone suggestions?

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Mexican tetra.

bmathison1972 wrote:

Eikoh figures are not often marketed to the species level and while very nice usually do not have the detail to definitively get species-level ID (see the fiddler crab, slow loris, etc.).

For TAI might be best to keep it at genus level and then collectors can call it what they want. If I were to get it (which I would like), I would call it L. piscatorius

In my opinion, when the species of a Japanese figure can’t be narrowed down from the genus, the Japanese species is the best option.
And that is L. litulon, the Yellow Goosefish.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]