Vol. 52 First Appearance! Extinct Mammals of the Cenozoic Era
Happy New Year again! This time, fitting for the first installment of the new year, we have "Cenozoic Era." Actually, I initially thought of titling it "Happy Cenozoic New Year," but it's already cold enough, so I decided against it. Anyway, I will introduce a collection of extinct Cenozoic mammals that, for some reason, have rarely appeared in the long-running series of Secret Treasure House (Mesozoic mammals were introduced in the synapsid section).
That being said, unlike dinosaurs, it's not that I'm not interested, but I don't have much knowledge, and there are many unfamiliar names, so I'll rely on Wikipedia for this. There are countless figures of the familiar Woolly Mammoth and Smilodon, so I can't introduce all of them, but I want to grasp the other regulars of the extinct mammal series here, so I've listed them below. (Elephants other than mammoths, and saber-toothed cats other than Smilodon, will be introduced separately.)
Arsinoitherium
Uintatherium
Brontotherium
Megatherium
Glyptodon
Chalicotherium
（or Moropus）
Woolly Rhinoceros
Macrauchenia
Aepycamelus
Entelodont
（or Daeodon）
Paraceratherium (Baluchitherium / Indricotherium)
Andrewsarchus
Please take a look at the collection photos after getting a good mental image of these animals, if possible. I anticipate spending most of my time describing animals other than these.
First, let's look at the proboscidean figures other than the Woolly Mammoth.
(Image 1) This is the main highlight. I went ahead and built the "AMERICAN MASTODON" plastic model from PALMER, which I only showed the box for in Secret Treasure House Vol. 56. Following the previous installment, this is another "I'll never build this if I miss this chance" series. However, early plastic model kits were more difficult than I expected. They were full of burrs, the parting lines were clearly stepped, and there were gaps everywhere even after assembly, so it took a considerable amount of effort to fix them. Moreover, the one I assembled this time was an abandoned project I obtained from Sekaimon, and it was poorly glued, so I had to start by peeling it apart. But I now indulge in the thought that it's quite amazing that I, 60 years later, completed a plastic model that an American boy (I'm assuming) excitedly opened and started building one day around 1960 (why was it abandoned? Did he just get tired of it, or was there an unavoidable reason for giving up?). The PALMER Mastodon, once completed, looks quite magnificent, doesn't it? I also took a three-shot with a Woolly Mammoth and Naumann's Elephant (Gakken, Secret Treasure House Vol. 60) of roughly the same scale (about 1/20). The Mastodon is a little larger, but let's attribute that to individual variation...
*There was only one photo of a completed kit that came up in an online search, and it was unpainted and un-primed. So, I thought my work might catch the eye of overseas enthusiasts, which is why I wrote it in English.
(Image 2) The Deinotherium and Gomphotherium on the left are from BULLYLAND. The ones on the right are from COLLECTA. The three metal figures in the foreground are engraved with "Naumann's Elephant of Lake Nojiri." To its right are gashapon and candy toys of Platybelodon, including "NHK Earth's Grand Evolution" and "Dinosaur Illustrated Encyclopedia" by Yujin, and next to them is Meiji's "Collect Club."
(Image 3) The proboscideans in the PREHISTOIRE series from STARLUX, featured in Secret Treasure House Vol. 6 and New Secret Treasure House Vol. 8, are comprehensive enough to trace their evolution. Starting from the Moeritherium on the far left, they branch into the Deinotherium suborder and the Elephant suborder. The Elephant suborder then evolved into Platybelodon, Anancus (Gomphotheriidae, but listed as Mastodons in the catalog), and then to mammoths.
For elephant evolution, see here:
http://pub.maruzen.co.jp/book_magazine/zetsumetsu_shin/
As for mammoth figures other than the Woolly Mammoth, Eofauna, one of the recently active Chinese manufacturers, has released a Steppe Mammoth (Trogontherium), but unfortunately, I haven't acquired it yet.
Let's move on from elephants and look at other extinct mammal figures.
(Image 4) First, continuing from STARLUX. Other than the usual suspects:
Synthetoceras
Titanotylopus
Cave Bear
The saber-toothed cat, which I skipped one of (inadvertently including a dicynodont), is not Smilodon but
Machairodus
And then, flanking the regular Aepycamelus, are two horses:
Palaeotherium
Hyracotherium (Eohippus)
Although the sculpting and painting are rough (or, to put it positively, they have character), their lineup is unparalleled.
(Image 5) The three species in the upper left are from MARX (Secret Treasure House Vol. 5). The Megatherium in the center is a quite rare piece made by MILLER (1950s). The two species on the right are from the British Museum of Natural History (Secret Treasure House Vol. 41). The lower left is a bonus from NABISCO cereal (Secret Treasure House Vol. 55). The white one is also a cereal bonus from SHREDDIES (1950s, New Secret Treasure House Vol. 8). The small one is Palaeotherium. The two on the right are from an unknown manufacturer.
(Image 6)BULLYLAND
On the far left is Megaloceros.
Two maned Smilodons. A strangely cute Cave Bear. The small horse is Anchitherium, which succeeded Hyracotherium.
(Image 7)COLLECTA
Being new, the quality is good. Especially the fur of the Elasmotherium is impressive.
(Image 8) The three on the left are Schleich. The Megatherium walking on all fours is rare. The one on the right is from a Chinese manufacturer called AAA, and the Hyaenodon is an item not seen elsewhere.
(Image 9) The "Ice Age" series excavation kits from GEOWORLD include the skeletons of a Cave Bear and a Glyptodon. The Glyptodon is an excellent model where the armor can be removed. This series is currently out of circulation, and I missed out on getting the Megatherium skeleton. What a shame!
The small skull set is Safari's "Prehistoric Mammal Skulls" tube.
(Image 10) Kaiyodo
The Arsinoitherium skull (sculpted by Shigeru Yamazaki, approx. 1/5 scale) is quite a rare item, I think. Yamazaki is the person who created many dinosaur skeletons, including the T-Rex. (Secret Treasure House Vol. 26, Vol. 31)
Next to it, the Woolly Mammoth (sculpted by Shinichi Yamashita, 1/35 scale) is also a valuable early Kaiyodo garage kit.
Below are candy toys and gacha figures exclusive to the 2014 National Museum of Nature and Science "Ancient Mammals Exhibition": Gomphotherium, Naumann's Elephant, Desmostylus, and Trogosus. The elephant on the far right, both living form and skull, is a Naumann's Elephant. It's from the ChocoQ Dinosaurs Series 4, and the skull is better crafted than the one from the Mammals Exhibition.
*I forgot that there is an Arsinoitherium skull among the replicated collection models sold at the National Museum of Nature and Science. You can see it here.
(Image 11) Aomurasaki Product
Mammals revealed for the first time in the Treasure House from the master garage kit maker introduced in Treasure House Vol. 64 and New Treasure House Vol. 27. The Glyptodon and Doedicurus are 1/20 scale, the same as the previously introduced synapsids. Since the Barytherium is almost HO scale, I've included a Parasaurolophus (Aomurasaki) and a hunter (Prieser) of the same scale.
(Image 12) These are extinct mammals by sansyo88 who continues to release unique works on Yahoo! Auctions. The number of sansyo88 works in my collection has increased significantly since the time of New Treasure House Vol. 21, but recently, it has become even more difficult to win bids, perhaps due to an increase in enthusiasts. The second from the left is the carnivorous marsupial, Thylacosmilus. In the back is a Smilodon that, for some reason, has a sheath on its lower jaw (although bones don't have sheaths). And then there's the Tsagandelta, which I didn't even know about.
sansyo88 's unique interpretations of prehistoric creatures with gentle faces are a refreshing change from the realistic paleo-figures of today. This is likely due to them being individual works.
(Image 13) Finally, here are some saber-toothed tigers other than Smilodon.
On the left is a replica of Dinictis. I bought it at a mineral show a few years ago because of its somewhat black humor and reasonable price. The pathetic Homo sapiens is just a stand. Dinictis belongs to the Nimravidae family (a separate suborder of Feliformia, sometimes rudely called "false saber-toothed cats") and became extinct 20 million years ago, so they never encountered humans. It's the same as a caveman fighting a T-Rex. If such a fossil were actually found, Christian creationists would be overjoyed. And sci-fi fans would make a huge fuss, claiming it as proof of time travel.
*"Dinictis" is confusing as it sounds like an ancient fish in Japanese, but the scientific names are different.
In the upper right is Eusmilus, also from the Nimravidae family. Below it is Machairodus, which was also released by STARLUX. Both are from BULLYLAND.
It's a bit sad that these are the only saber-toothed tigers I have, even including the false ones, other than Smilodon.
*I recently read the sci-fi novel "The Great Evolution Animal Death Game" (Kusano Harahara, Hayakawa Bunko 2019), set in the Cenozoic era. It's about 18 high school girls from the same class, chosen by "the source of all things," who time-slip to North America 8 million years ago, in the Miocene epoch, to eradicate the evolving cats and sever the roots of the evolutionary cats, thus restoring the "human universe" to a world that was suddenly rewritten into a "cat universe" dominated by evolved cats. While the ecology of high school girls is meticulously depicted, creating a moe-moe feel, the scientific explanations interspersed throughout enhance the hard sci-fi feel. Paleontological creatures appropriate to the era and region, such as Machairodus, Moropus, and Synthetoceras, also appear. The tagline was "Youthful Hard Yuri SF Ensemble Drama." I enjoyed it.
And there's a sequel titled "The Great Extinction Dinosaur Time Wars," where the same members, in the same situation, go to the Cretaceous period to reclaim the world from "evolved birds," but the subsequent development goes wildly out of control. As stated on the back cover, it was a "super shocking problematic work that greatly betrays the expectations of readers of the previous work." A slapstick hard SF... for some reason, it reminded me of the "trouble" I felt when I read Yasutaka Tsutsui's short story "Trouble" about a human pie-throwing incident.
(Image 14) Finally, please relax with this. This is a novelty item from the famous Cup Noodle commercial "hungry?" from around 1993, which made full use of stop-motion animation. It features a Mammoth, Synthetoceras, and Brontotherium.
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