GubernatorFan wrote:I read a sad article about the closing down of museum displays with taxidermy, thanks to the increasing reliance on virtual (online, TV) experiences.
That's a sad situation. As Lynkhart points out, seeing things on a screen doesn't give a proper impression of size. Even seeing the diagrams isn't the same as seeing a thing in person. And the tapir v musk ox pic really surprised me! I had no idea tapirs were that large!
More and more people are thinking that screens can replace reality, and that animals, even ones long dead, should not be "exploited" for displays, even educational displays. I am coming to believe that our screen-based culture is leading us in to an intellectual dark age where people will have an increasingly tenuous grasp of physical, tangible reality.
But... we're talking about that buffalo, right?
BUFFALO! Not a freakin'
bison! There's
no such animal as an African Bison.
The African Buffalo -
Syncerus caffer - is a totally different critter than the American Bison (formerly known colloquially as a "buffalo"). The African Buffalo has always been known in western tongues as buffalo.
Read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_buffalo
Now even the China-based manufacturers are adopting "correctness" when it comes to naming conventions, but in doing so, they are spreading more "disinformation." It's not even disinformation, it's just plain wrong.
This would be a cool figure to have if one were assembling a "Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" action figure diorama for junior high school literature class. But I'm not in junior high school anymore. And if you took a 1/6-scale Griffin & Howe Springfield big game rifle to school to complete your diorama, you'd probably get suspended.
Plus, I'm so annoyed by them calling it a "Bison" that I'll give it a pass.