Rebor: 1/11±1 Smilodon populator

[Bread]

@REBOR_STUDIO well done! I really can't wait for that Alligator!

Interesting choices for the cenozoic mammals. I can understand the want for only carnivores as it seems with this market of cenozoic, herbivores dominate more than carnivores. Plus with Eofauna producing top notch large herbivorous prehistoric mammals,  it would be a good idea to just go with large carnivorous prehistoric mammals.

[suspsy]

I honestly can't help but chuckle at the accusation that Rebor is singled out for more criticism than any other company. People here criticize the products of all the companies all the time. PNSO gets criticized for things like the scales on Wilson's head and the tail on Jeff the Kronosaurus and their pricing. CollectA gets criticized for the fuzzy patches on their Paraceratherium and the fact that they've made yet another Pteranodon and Spinosaurus. Safari gets criticized for releasing only three toys this year, all theropods, one of them undersized and shrink wrapped. Papo gets criticized for not evolving their aesthetic since 2005. And Schleich gets criticized for . . . gosh, take your pick. There's really nothing special about the criticism that gets levelled at Rebor products.

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll state that I am quite keen to see what their planned short-faced bear and Gigantopithecus will be like. No other company has tackled those big boys yet. Good on Rebor for choosing them.

[SidB]

@suspsy , this is a very, very good post. Like it or not, it reflects the general climate of the Forum, as often as not. My recommendation to the Rebor folk is to take this under serious consideration, it will save them considerable aggravation. To Rebor's credit, at the very least, they do take and make the effort to respond to criticisms, many of which are constructive, though these would probably be of more value to them if received earlier in the design/ fabrication process, if that were possible.

At the end of the day, I wish that other companies would take the trouble to be responsive to the input that knowledgeable Forum members would be more than willing to offer. I'm looking at you Schleich and Papo, two companies capable of very high production values, that historically have fallen short in other ways.

[blnadal]

@REBOR_STUDIO is this the only planned cenozoic prehistoric mammal you will be doing?

Also, off topic, PLEASE take a look at what some have been commenting about the Alligator's scales!

A dire wolf, a short-faced bear, a cave bear, a Gigantopithecus and a giant prehistoric grounded bat, that's about it. There won't be any herbivores which means you'll never see a woolly mammoth from us

Will it all be the same 1/11±1 scale?
And an american lion would be great, too

[The Prehistoric Traveler]

Since Gigantopithecus was most likely a herbivorre, too, you might have to cancel your plans for that one.

The paintscheme, not the anatomy.

I know.

There are no extant great apes that are herbivores. All of them are omnivores including gorillas (the also feed on termites and grubs). Gigantopithecus was very likely an omnivore.

[The Prehistoric Traveler]

@REBOR_STUDIO is this the only planned cenozoic prehistoric mammal you will be doing?

Also, off topic, PLEASE take a look at what some have been commenting about the Alligator's scales!

A dire wolf, a short-faced bear, a cave bear, a Gigantopithecus and a giant prehistoric grounded bat, that's about it. There won't be any herbivores which means you'll never see a woolly mammoth from us

It's been fixed:

A dire wolf, a short-faced bear, a cave bear, a Gigantopithecus and a giant prehistoric grounded bat? If these will really make it and are of the quality of your smilodon we are really in for a treat! A rebor gigantopithecus would be my number one! It could be naturalistic and ferocious at the same time. Great news REBOR! Although i have to hold of my excitement until there is some certainty regarding these projects.

[Halichoeres]

Look at that chart again, ocelots are their closest relative, so seems we were both wrong.

No? Ocelots aren't even included in this phylogeny, are you looking at the spotted linsang (Prionodon pardicolor)? Again, machirodontines and felines share a sister group relationship to each other within Felidae, so any one member from either group it equally closely related to all members of the other group.

I don't care much about this figure one way or the other but @EarthboundEiniosaurus is correct here. The closest thing to an ocelot in that cladogram they posted is the kodkod, which, along with all other living cats and some extinct ones not shown, is in the sister clade to the machairodonts. All living cats are therefore more closely related to each other than to Smilodon, and Smilodon is equally closely related to all living cats: ocelots, tigers, house cats, clouded leopards and lynxes alike. If I may toot my own horn a bit, I wrote an explainer on reading cladograms here: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=3586.msg104482#msg104482

My bad, I thought kodkod were ocelots? Same genus, sorry for using the common name wrong. But this shows them as the most basal living cats which would place them as the closest relative to the sister group, no?

Not trying to get involved with the debate around proportions but just wanted to say that Smilodon and all other machairodontines are equally closely related to all extant cats, so no modern cat is more closely related to Smilodon than any other.

I'm guessing you're saying that because the only Leopardus in the cladogram is on a long branch all by its lonesome? Like almost any time someone refers to a living taxon as 'basal,' that's a sampling artifact. Assuming Leopardus is monophyletic, this could have had several other tips on it, but they weren't necessary or relevant for the point the authors here were trying to make.

In the version below I've labeled the last common ancestor of living cats as "Felidae crown group." There are only two branches from that ancestor, one going to the Pantherinae and one going to the Felinae. Leopardus is well-nested within the Felinae. As a member of the crown group Felidae, it cannot, by definition, be more closely related to anything outside the crown group than inside. By the same token, because the crown group excludes machairodontines, no machairodontine can be closer to any member of the crown group than to any other member of the crown group. And of course, Rebor is equally incorrect to claim that Neofelis is any closer to machairodontines than any other living cat is. Proximity of tips is wholly irrelevant; only branch connections matter. The cladogram could easily be rotated around the crown node to have Catopuma as "closest" to Homotherium and it would say the exact same thing.

[stargatedalek]

Spoiler

Look at that chart again, ocelots are their closest relative, so seems we were both wrong.

No? Ocelots aren't even included in this phylogeny, are you looking at the spotted linsang (Prionodon pardicolor)? Again, machirodontines and felines share a sister group relationship to each other within Felidae, so any one member from either group it equally closely related to all members of the other group.

I don't care much about this figure one way or the other but @EarthboundEiniosaurus is correct here. The closest thing to an ocelot in that cladogram they posted is the kodkod, which, along with all other living cats and some extinct ones not shown, is in the sister clade to the machairodonts. All living cats are therefore more closely related to each other than to Smilodon, and Smilodon is equally closely related to all living cats: ocelots, tigers, house cats, clouded leopards and lynxes alike. If I may toot my own horn a bit, I wrote an explainer on reading cladograms here: https://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=3586.msg104482#msg104482

My bad, I thought kodkod were ocelots? Same genus, sorry for using the common name wrong. But this shows them as the most basal living cats which would place them as the closest relative to the sister group, no?

Not trying to get involved with the debate around proportions but just wanted to say that Smilodon and all other machairodontines are equally closely related to all extant cats, so no modern cat is more closely related to Smilodon than any other.

[close]

I'm guessing you're saying that because the only Leopardus in the cladogram is on a long branch all by its lonesome? Like almost any time someone refers to a living taxon as 'basal,' that's a sampling artifact. Assuming Leopardus is monophyletic, this could have had several other tips on it, but they weren't necessary or relevant for the point the authors here were trying to make.

In the version below I've labeled the last common ancestor of living cats as "Felidae crown group." There are only two branches from that ancestor, one going to the Pantherinae and one going to the Felinae. Leopardus is well-nested within the Felinae. As a member of the crown group Felidae, it cannot, by definition, be more closely related to anything outside the crown group than inside. By the same token, because the crown group excludes machairodontines, no machairodontine can be closer to any member of the crown group than to any other member of the crown group. And of course, Rebor is equally incorrect to claim that Neofelis is any closer to machairodontines than any other living cat is. Proximity of tips is wholly irrelevant; only branch connections matter. The cladogram could easily be rotated around the crown node to have Catopuma as "closest" to Homotherium and it would say the exact same thing.

I'm still very confused. This shows Leopardis branching off earlier from the Felinae ancestor than any other branches that continue to living members. It's not that it's monophyletic, it's that it splits earlier.

If it's split off from the ancestral Felinae member sooner than Neofelis is from the Pantherinae common ancestor. Wouldn't this place it closest to the common ancestor, and therefore closest to everything outside the group?

When I said they were the closest to Smilodon I meant the closest among the living cats, not that it was closer to Smilodon than to other living cats. I understand that would be silly and I'm sorry if I phrased that unclearly.

I honestly can't help but chuckle at the accusation that Rebor is singled out for more criticism than any other company. People here criticize the products of all the companies all the time. PNSO gets criticized for things like the scales on Wilson's head and the tail on Jeff the Kronosaurus and their pricing. CollectA gets criticized for the fuzzy patches on their Paraceratherium and the fact that they've made yet another Pteranodon and Spinosaurus. Safari gets criticized for releasing only three toys this year, all theropods, one of them undersized and shrink wrapped. Papo gets criticized for not evolving their aesthetic since 2005. And Schleich gets criticized for . . . gosh, take your pick. There's really nothing special about the criticism that gets levelled at Rebor products.

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll state that I am quite keen to see what their planned short-faced bear and Gigantopithecus will be like. No other company has tackled those big boys yet. Good on Rebor for choosing them.

This. And I for one am excited to see REBOR's take on what I can only assume is "not the Primeval Future Predator".

[Halichoeres]

Oh, I think I see your confusion now. This just isn't what basal means. In the strictest sense, it refers to the phylogenetic position of an extinct member of a clade near the common ancestor, a member exhibiting a mix of primitive and derived traits. In this sense, you could say that a basal member of a clade has accumulated fewer character state changes than derived members, relative to members of the outgroup; however, a phylogeneticist would not say it is more closely related even in this event, because it would still share a common ancestor with all members of the focal clade more recently than any member of the outgroup. That said, its mix of derived and primitive characters can be informative about the outgroup.

Sometimes, in a looser sense, "basal" is used to refer to the position of a member of clade that is sister to all other members (in this sense, for example, people sometimes call orangutans basal to other great apes). In this sense (which is imprecise and controversial, and which I discourage my students from using), Leopardus could be considered basal to other members the small cat clade, but not to extant cats as a whole. But you can convey the same information by saying it is the sister taxon of the remaining small cats. So in this cladogram, whereas the split between Leopardus and other felines is older than the split between Neofelis and other pantherines, that doesn't make either Leopardus or Neofelis basal, or sister, to other members of Felidae. If you want to call any branch basal, it either must be all pantherines, or all felines, because those are the only two branches that arise directly from the common ancestor of all living cats.

If no living cat can be considered more primitive than others (which they cannot, because all of them have been accumulating changes for the entire duration of their divergence from one another), the corollary is that Smilodon cannot be closer to any of the living cats, because they all arise from a node in the tree that does not subtend Smilodon. That is, the clade arising from the crown node excludes Smilodon, which is on a separate trajectory from crown-group felids for the entirety of their existence. So the thing you say you meant is actually logically equivalent to the thing you say you didn't mean. Smilodon can only be equally related to all living cats (unless new data completely disrupt this phylogenetic hypothesis, which seems improbable). If it helps, it's a lot like saying that chickens are more closely related to tyrannosaurs than hummingbirds are--by definition they must be equally related because tyrannosaurs are outside the bird crown group.

Does that help?

[stargatedalek]

Oh, I think I see your confusion now. This just isn't what basal means. In the strictest sense, it refers to the phylogenetic position of an extinct member of a clade near the common ancestor, a member exhibiting a mix of primitive and derived traits. In this sense, you could say that a basal member of a clade has accumulated fewer character state changes than derived members, relative to members of the outgroup; however, a phylogeneticist would not say it is more closely related even in this event, because it would still share a common ancestor with all members of the focal clade more recently than any member of the outgroup. That said, its mix of derived and primitive characters can be informative about the outgroup.

Sometimes, in a looser sense, "basal" is used to refer to the position of a member of clade that is sister to all other members (in this sense, for example, people sometimes call orangutans basal to other great apes). In this sense (which is imprecise and controversial, and which I discourage my students from using), Leopardus could be considered basal to other members the small cat clade, but not to extant cats as a whole. But you can convey the same information by saying it is the sister taxon of the remaining small cats. So in this cladogram, whereas the split between Leopardus and other felines is older than the split between Neofelis and other pantherines, that doesn't make either Leopardus or Neofelis basal, or sister, to other members of Felidae. If you want to call any branch basal, it either must be all pantherines, or all felines, because those are the only two branches that arise directly from the common ancestor of all living cats.

If no living cat can be considered more primitive than others (which they cannot, because all of them have been accumulating changes for the entire duration of their divergence from one another), the corollary is that Smilodon cannot be closer to any of the living cats, because they all arise from a node in the tree that does not subtend Smilodon. That is, the clade arising from the crown node excludes Smilodon, which is on a separate trajectory from crown-group felids for the entirety of their existence. So the thing you say you meant is actually logically equivalent to the thing you say you didn't mean. Smilodon can only be equally related to all living cats (unless new data completely disrupt this phylogenetic hypothesis, which seems improbable). If it helps, it's a lot like saying that chickens are more closely related to tyrannosaurs than hummingbirds are--by definition they must be equally related because tyrannosaurs are outside the bird crown group.

Does that help?

It does! The first part does in particular.

[blnadal]

[SenSx]

Looks extremely good, thank you !
The seam of the heads is very well hidden.

I'm afraid the plain variant with open mouth is suffering from some strabismus here though, crossing fingers mine won't have that issue 

[Antey]

The figure is beautiful, but it seems to me that it does not reflect the main feature of saber-toothed predators. The powerful and long neck resembled the hilt of an ax, and the head with fangs constituted the weapon itself. The head was attached to the neck at an angle. The fangs ran deep parallel to the forehead line, increasing the force of the blow. This is why Smilodon's skull is so short. He's just a fang mount. By the way, I turned to professional paleontologists - experts on extinct cats for advice on this matter. Waiting for an answer.

[The Prehistoric Traveler]

The figure is beautiful, but it seems to me that it does not reflect the main feature of saber-toothed predators. The powerful and long neck resembled the hilt of an ax, and the head with fangs constituted the weapon itself. The head was attached to the neck at an angle. The fangs ran deep parallel to the forehead line, increasing the force of the blow. This is why Smilodon's skull is so short. He's just a fang mount. By the way, I turned to professional paleontologists - experts on extinct cats for advice on this matter. Waiting for an answer.

There is nothing all that special about the neck of a smilodon. It is only slightly longer than the ones on extant cats. If you look at the REBOR figure from the back of the neck is really quite long. And yes, long enough. It's the angle of the head that gives it the illusion of a short neck.


This is a lion:

https://natuurwijzer.naturalis.nl/files/2021-04/Skelet%20leeuw_Foto%20Joris%20van%20Alphen.jpg

A housecat:

https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0439673/800wm/C0439673-Skeleton_of_a_Domestic_Cat.jpg

Does the length of that neck really show up as being very noticable in a full fleshed domestic cat or a lion? No, not really, or not at all. 

Smilodon Populator:

https://www.biolib.cz/IMG/GAL/120914.jpg

REBOR (the back-side of the neck):

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51659526968_1c9ca38f63_h.jpg


On a sidenote, anyone that thinks this is to muscular for a smilodon is really on the wrong track! There are tigers and lions bulkier than this:

https://i2.wp.com/www.justkirsty.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/img_0658-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C768

[blnadal]

https://youtu.be/eh3SQM8-UZw

[Shonisaurus]

The seams are hardly noticeable. They are huge and beautiful at the same time, they remind me with the open jaw of the Assyrian lions. They are very pretty.

Those painting details of one of the smilodon resembling the skin of a lion and the other whose skin is similar to a snow leopard, they look great. It is a must buy for all lovers of prehistoric mammals such as the livyatan from PNSO or the doedicurus from Collecta. The coolest paleoartistic representation I know of that well-known extinct feline.

[Fenestra]

I'm very impressed with these two smilodons.
The fur looks fantastic. You can even see the muscle structure underneath. The paint job is immaculate. Well done Rebor!
And the fact that both heads are included for that price is great. No ugly movable jaw joints on these beauties!

[Shonisaurus]

It is what I value the most in my case, the fact that the two smilodons lack mobile jaws. One point in favor of Rebor.

[CityRaptor]

That's what interchangeable heads are for.

And it's three Smilodons, not just two, even if anyone here is unlikely to buy the third one.

[SenSx]

The Rebor Smilodon Populator is finally in stock at Everything Dinosaur.
I know I have alwready bought mine (ice variant) along with my long overdue order from this seller.