Recent Acquisitions

[Monkeysaurus]

@Faelrin

Thanks for all that info! I know that the transition from "reptile" (yes I know it's
not a real category) to mammal took an insanely long time. Like 100 million years or so. I've always wanted to find out where
the earliest signs of proto-nursing developed. I imagine it would've started out like modern day platypus - sweating some sort of nutrient that the babies lap up. It's our defining trait and it would be a dream to have well preserved evolutionary gradients like we do with whales and early Homo. I actually think about this often. I believe the earliest known unarguable mammal as we know them was late Triassic so nursing would've evolved before then some time.

[Faelrin]

@Monkeysaurus Reptilia is valid. The groups typically defined as reptiles fall under the clade Sauropsida. However animals like Estemmenosuchus, Lystrosaurus, Inostrancevia, Dimetrodon, and mammals all fall under the clade Synapsida. Both sauropsids and synapsids are amniote (egg laying) tetrapods. Mammal-like reptile was historically used for non mammal synapsids, but has become antiquated for some time now, as synapsids aren't considered to be reptiles any longer with the current phylogenetic understanding.

This section on the wikipedia article on Synapsida has more information regarding integument from non mammal synapsids:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsida#Skin_and_fur

It seems something like used in monotremes for milk production (or some nutrient rich substance) would have been present as far back as Cynodontia (a non mammal therapsid clade, but which mammals have evolved from). Hair has been found as far back as the Permian.

These other articles might be of interest as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammaliaformes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_mammals

[Monkeysaurus]

I'm not a fan of the term reptile, because it doesn't reflect actual relation in the same way mammal or bird does. For the term to still work you would have to include birds essentially. I'm also pretty sure including turtles in the group causes issues as well. The traits defined as reptilian are more due to convergent evolution rather than relation. Sauropsida is perfectly fine to me , as is squamate for lizards and snakes and archosaur for dinos and crocs. Mammal works both in common and scientific sense.

None of this really matters though in the grand scheme of things I suppose. Nature doesn't care about our labels so as long as you can read the music and understand the reality of the thing in question. That aside that is fascinating that "nursing" may actually be that old! Sweating nutrients I mean. I guess from there it's just a matter of those pores becoming more "nipply" and the "sweat" becoming more milky. Thank you for the links

[Roselaar]

A few more JW Rebirth scores:

[DavidJamesArmsby]

I'm not a fan of the term reptile, because it doesn't reflect actual relation in the same way mammal or bird does. For the term to still work you would have to include birds essentially. I'm also pretty sure including turtles in the group causes issues as well. The traits defined as reptilian are more due to convergent evolution rather than relation. Sauropsida is perfectly fine to me , as is squamate for lizards and snakes and archosaur for dinos and crocs. Mammal works both in common and scientific sense.

None of this really matters though in the grand scheme of things I suppose. Nature doesn't care about our labels so as long as you can read the music and understand the reality of the thing in question. That aside that is fascinating that "nursing" may actually be that old! Sweating nutrients I mean. I guess from there it's just a matter of those pores becoming more "nipply" and the "sweat" becoming more milky. Thank you for the links

I agree that "reptile" is a weird and badly defined group (in the common sense). "Reptilia" is pretty well defined.
But if you think reptiles are bad, don't ever look into "fish". All reptiles and all mammals are technically fish if everything we call a fish is taxonomically a fish.

Nature really doesn't seem to care for our silly labels

[Monkeysaurus]

@DavidJamesArmsby

"Fish" truly is the worst offender. The Coelacanth is more closely related to us than it is other "fish" so yes, it really is a taxonomic crime against humanity. You and I are indeed just a very very specialized subset of land fish.

[SidB]

Here's a new arrival, the elegant and venerable cream-colored Invicta Manenschisaurus of 1988 vintage, a real classic. This one came in mint condition at a pretty reasonable price.



Here it is with my other two Invicta Mamen's, the original factory painted blue, my oldest collected dino collectible, snapped up from a Value Village way back seventeen years ago, and another green one that I'd painted back when I still occasionally painted things that shouldn't probably have been painted (as opposed to things that should be). The new Mamenshisaurus therefore replaces the original cream colored one that should have remained unpainted. All's well as ends well, I suppose.

[ceratopsian]

So elegant - this Mamenchi never fails to delight me.

[JohannesB]

A very nice figure, this Haolonggood Iguanodon. A lovely rendition of one of my favourite dinosaurs. A bit sloppily painted details, here and there, but nothing that can't be fixed, I guess.
(Sorry about the last picture. I don't know how it ended up on its side.)

[SidB]

So elegant - this Mamenchi never fails to delight me.

Amazing, isn't it, after 27 years too!

[JohannesB]

I felt the creative urge to retouch sloppily painted details on my Haolonggood Iguanodon. I am very happy. It changed from a 8/10 to a 9.5/10

[Flaffy]

@JohannesB Great work. Even though the sculpted details on the pinkie are unfortunate, having the paint match up with the surrounding skin helps in obscuring the errornous details. Hopefully future runs of HLG's Igaunodon will at the very least exclude claw paint on Digit V. Safari's inital run of their Iguanodon had a similar defect, though to a lesser extent given that the digit was sculpted to be encased in flesh.

Image credit: Marc Vincent DTB

[SidB]

Nice, @JohannesB , I see that you've corrected digit 5 for texture as well as color. I plan to do the same when my turn arrives.

[Paleo Flo]

So elegant - this Mamenchi never fails to delight me.

Amazing, isn't it, after 27 years too!

Word, bros! Somehow the Invicta dinosaurus are here to stay forever. They just have "it". Something magicial, something that you could discribe as "sense of wonder". Congrats S @SidB !

[Paleo Flo]

@JohannesB : Nice work! For someone who never customized any figure...how did you do this?

In between my latest HLG-haul arrived from Lana. There are 4 new figures which I will open as a selfgiving present to me after my birthday in a few weeks.

[JohannesB]

S @SidB & @Paleo Flo, I only retouched with some paint, nothing more. Easily doable for anyone, I think.

[Paleo Flo]

S @SidB & @Paleo Flo, I only retouched with some paint, nothing more. Easily doable for anyone, I think.

Thank you. Which colour-tone did you use? Did you some work in terms of wheatering or something like that?

[JohannesB]

S @SidB & @Paleo Flo, I only retouched with some paint, nothing more. Easily doable for anyone, I think.

Thank you. Which colour-tone did you use? Did you some work in terms of wheatering or something like that?

I only painted, nothing more. A mix of burnt umber, ultramarine, a tiny amount of red and a little white acrylic paint for the finger.

[Paleo Flo]

S @SidB & @Paleo Flo, I only retouched with some paint, nothing more. Easily doable for anyone, I think.

Thank you. Which colour-tone did you use? Did you some work in terms of wheatering or something like that?

I only painted, nothing more. A mix of burnt umber, ultramarine, a tiny amount of red and a little white acrylic paint for the finger.

Ok. Thank you. I will see if I can handle it.

[JohannesB]

S @SidB & @Paleo Flo, I only retouched with some paint, nothing more. Easily doable for anyone, I think.

Thank you. Which colour-tone did you use? Did you some work in terms of wheatering or something like that?

I only painted, nothing more. A mix of burnt umber, ultramarine, a tiny amount of red and a little white acrylic paint for the finger.

Ok. Thank you. I will see if I can handle it.

I would say it is approximately this color (maybe a bit lighter and less saturated, but then add just a little white paint):