Despite being not too big, clouded leopards are often referred as a “modern-day saber tooth” because they are the cats with the largest canines in proportion to their body size, matching the tiger in canine length. Clouded leopard have a very distinctive fur pattern , often largely obliterated by black and dark dusky-grey blotches yielding the clouded pattern that suggest the English name of the cat. Despite its name, it is not closely related to the leopard. There are two species of clouded leopards, both quite similar, the simple clouded leopard is Neofelis nebulosa. The other one is the Sunda clouded leopard. They diverged 1.4 million years ago, after having used a now submerged land bridge to reach Borneo and Sumatra from mainland Asia. The most significant differences between them is related with the way how they are spotted. Sunda species have smaller clouds in the back half of the body. The color of the two models are slightly different, being one more brownish than the other. However, both species can have the two colorations. The clouded leopard belongs to the Neofelis linage, part of the Panthera genus. It is considered to form an evolutionary link between the big cats and the small cats.In fact, As you can see in the following picture it represents the smallest of the big cats.
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“As you know I am a convinced supported of keeping animal models collections embraced by the same scale. One of the beauties of these collections is the view of relative sizes of the real animals. That is why I have selected 1:20 as the best scale, at least for mammals. For some time I had been rolling on my mind the thought about which could be the limits using this scale. I calculated the size of a Blue Whale in about 1,5 meters what means that, despite taking a lot of room, it is possible to keep some of them at home, even if you have to hang them from the ceiling What about the smallest mammals like tiny rodents...? So, fee eeeks ago,I decided to take a break in my normal projects and find out which could be the lower limit for 1:20 scale. I selected the following one to be my new model: THE GOLDEN HAMSTER!!! I knew that some other sculptors made small figurines of these tiny pets for doll houses like the one you can see below, which is adorably perfect: However, even this small model, which is about 2 cm long, is huge if you compare with how it should be in 1:20 scale. A real Golden Hamster, a big one, could be something like 18 cm long, that means that a 1:20 model should be less than 1 cm (0.9 cm to be exact). It means less than the half of the one of the previous picture... AND THIS WAS THE CHALLENGE!!!! To make a 1:20 Golden Hamster model which should measure less than 9 millimeters... So, see the result: I always wanted to make a model of an Elephant Seal in the same scale than other big animals. Just to see how immense he really is… My 1:20 model of a southern elephant seal bull is 30 cm long from nose to tail… (See the making process in the STS Forum) The seal gets its name from its great size and the large proboscis of the adult males, which is used to make extraordinarily loud roaring noises, especially during the mating season. Although not well known, this animal is colossally large, in particular the southern elephant species, the record-sized bull, shot in Possession Bay, South Georgia, on 28 February 1913, measured 6.85 long and was estimated to weigh 5,000 kg, clearly bigger than big rhinos and Hippos. Apart from his size, Elephant Seals are really very interesting species. One of the most remarkable facts is how similar are the two different species from the two poles. Being so far, it is incredible that they evolved in a quite similar way after millions and millions of years, something that I think it is no normal.
I can´t find a good explanation for that…The existence, for instance, of two so similar elephants subspecies, Indian and African, in two adjacent continents is easy to understand. But you can´t find neither Penguins in the Artic nor Polar bears in the Antarctica, just because there were no possibility for the ancestors of those animals, already tied to very cold weathers, to cross from one pole to the other…then, how could the ancestor of the elephant seal cross so long distance? …few millions years ago, when they surely were already adapted to very cold environments… However, there are other issues about these seals that really impress me. Elephant seals can hold their breath for more than 100 minutes. The average depth of their dives is typically about 300 to 600 m, for around 60 minutes for males. The deepest recorded dive of an elephant seal is more than 2,000 mts, much, much deeper than a nuclear submarine!!!. This is because the elephant seals have a very large volume of blood, allowing them to hold a large amount of oxygen for use when diving. They have large sinuses in their abdomens to hold blood and can also store oxygen in their muscles with increased myoglobin concentrations in muscle. In addition, they have a larger proportion of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. These adaptations allow elephant seals to dive to such depths and remain underwater for up to two hours. Other signifact is that this beast shows extreme sexual dimorphism in sizewith the males typically five to six times heavier than the females. The fennec fox or simply fennec is the smallest species of canid. He is perfectly adapted to high-temperature, low-water, desert environments. Its coat, ears, and kidney functions are specifically adapted for nocturnal life in the hard Sahara desert in North Africa. Its unusually large ears -its most distinctive feature- serve to dissipate heat and to improve its hearing, that is sensitive enough to hear prey moving underground. Being a small animal my model at 1:20 scale is hardly 4 cm long, here you can see a complete "walk around" of it: The fennec fox is the national animal of Algeria, and so It serves as the nickname for the Algeria national football team: "Les Fennecs". …Looking such a “fierce appearance”, I presume it should be some kind of deceiving strategy. And here you can see my fennec model wit some other neighbors in the Sahara Dessert (one bigger, one smaller and the last one, equal) :
Maned Rat is really a very particular little –an dangerous- animal with a crest which is not only an ornament. In fact its mane is bordered by a broad, white strip of hairs covering an area of glandular skin that can be erected and exposed if the rat is threatened. “The hairs in this area are, at the tips, like ordinary hair, but are otherwise spongy, fibrous, and absorbent. The rat is known to deliberately smear these hairs with poison from the bark of the Acokanthera schimperi, on which it chews, thus creating a defense mechanism that can sicken or even kill predators which attempt to bite it”. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I always asked myself why male lions are the only cats with mane, the most distinctive characteristic of them. Someone said that it is used for sexual selection of mates by lionesses, which favours males with the densest and darkest mane. After working in sculpting big cats, I realize that lions mane give them the appearance to be much bigger than they really are. Lions are markedly territorial species, and males are almost exclusively dedicated to defend their “kingdoms”. It clearly explain why having a big mane –transmitting great strength- could be definitive. Some researches suggest that darkest and longest maned individuals may have longer reproductive lives and higher offspring survival, although they can suffer more in the hottest months of the year. What is clear is that mane length signals fighting success in male–male relationships. Contrary to what some people think, mane is not always an appropriate marker for identifying subspecies. Environmental factors, such as average ambient temperature, influence the color and size of a lion's mane. It also seems that the testosterone hormone is linked to mane growth. In fact castrated lions often have minimal to no mane. Any way, mane size has been used to identify some subspecies. The almost extinct Barbary lion normally had an enormous dark mane. On the contrary, Senegal lions, in West Africa, are well known to be almost maneless. Asiatic lion usually have a moderate sandy mane in a very characteristic shape, growth at the top of the head, with their ears always visible, and scanty on the cheeks and throat with where it is only 10 cm long. Barbary Lion Asiatic Lion Senegalese Lion So, now that I am working in a new model of a Barbary Lion, which is, more or less about the same size of a Siberian tiger, I have to say that, despite I had an scrupulously care about the measures, the lion looks significantly bigger than the tiger.
You can see this effect on the following picture, showing my models of a siberian tiger and Southeastern african lion (although this tiger is significantly bigger than this lion) : |
AuthorI love animal replicas. I make them since I was a child an now I have restarted this passionate hobby. Archives
October 2016
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