Prehistoric Herbivores (2nd forgotten page)

I still have not played or designed a ruleset I like to use these miniatures in, but I love painting animal figures. I have ended up with quite a few miniatures of what I hope will be the density that ancient landscapes held, when I finally get them on the game table. 

Scrub Oxen, based on what I could find at the time they looked similar to Cape Buffalo.

Mammoths, they seem to have come in two colors a reddish brown and a lighter blonde. 

Mastodon, distant relative of Mammoths common in eastern North America.

American Moose or European Elk, same animal different names. Before a hunt and after, or are you walking up on predator meal. 

Generic Deer figure, larger than most white tail deer. So it can be a red or mule deer, or multiple types of prehistoric deer.

Giant Capibara of South America. This would have been a young one or a runt. 

I will try to start this back up again, but I get busy and forget to take good photos of my figures when I get them done. 

 

The Americas 3 (forgot to post these when done)

Predator Time

Well first up is one of the reasons Pronghorn are so fast, the American Cheetah.

Actually a relative of the Puma, They may have come in two sizes large and larger, the large ones being about the size of an existing Cheetah. Shot picture curtesy of Mike Demana.

An American Lion pride, so far nothing printed I know of gives them any coloring but that of a normal lion. Same for the European Cave Lion. Lion Linage didn't seem to vary much from the baseline of the family tree.

The Giant Jaguar found mostly in North America they were the size of modern lions, size increase just seemed to broaden their potential prey. 

The Puma, mountain lion, painter, panther, cougar... and those are just some of the North American names for them. Modern range is the artic to the tip of South America, rare in open grasslands, it is a fearless ambush predator to this day. They are still debating the family tree for these cats as even the extant ones show variation from area to area. The debate may have ended but I haven't read it yet.

The Lynx is second to the Puma in size, but still can bring down big game. They are bigger than Bobcats and hunt up to deer sized prey.

These are from one the RPG miniature lines, I painted them up to be Nimravids. These catlike carnivores co-existed with real cats for some time in the fossil record, there are even fossils showing they fought each other, probably over food. They could also fill in for some of the smaller Machairodont or extinct felid. Second picture curtesy of Mike Demana.

Now for the Machairodont, sabertoothed cat family. Some of this family ranged the world, but one lineage would become a dominate one here in North America. 

First up is one of the long tailed variety, this could also represent several of the non-smilodon dirk toothed cats.

   

Now for the smilodons, there are three subspecies of these cats. The S. gracilis is the smallest of the three and while there is evidence that all three lived in groups it is not known if these were smaller family groups or the pride like groups of the lions. The first picture is of my slender Smilodons. This one is part of my successful 3d printing, the cubs are in several of the groups come from my printer.

Next is several takes on S. fatalis, this one was the most common sabertooth in North America until the Holocene die off. they were lion sized cats that seem to have not competed directly with the North American Lion, I'm sure there were times they ran afoul of each other, but must have specialized in differing prey. The whole family group in picture 3 are from my 3d printer. had 3 others that didn't print correctly.

Next up we have the one most people think of the S. populator, this was the largest of the Smilodon and one of the largest cats of all time. They were a very large animal that probably ate whatever it wanted, seems to have hunted in family groups and has yet to make a confirmed appearance in North America. Two of the books I read stated that they may have evolved in North America, moved south with the Columbian exchange and been more successful in South America than in North America. I think these both are Reaper miniatures, the top one plastic and the bottom metal. The top picture is probably closer to true size, while the bottom closer to what was seen in  the 10,000 BC the movie, not quite that big in real life; at least not found that large yet.

And now the Bears. The top two pictures are ones that can be used as cubs.