I was wondering if someone could help me with the size of the following plains game animals from the top of the back to the bottom of the belly. I have not had any luck finding this infomation on the web

For example I saw a full mounted Springbuck and it measured 12 inches from its back to the bottom of its belly.

Animals interested in knowing

Kudu
Oryx
Zebra
Impala
Blesbuck
blue Wildebeest
Red Hartebeast

I greatly appreciate the help.

Jim

Hmm, great minds think alike if you are thinking what I been thinking about for the last 3 months...

Not exactly the measurements you asked for, but the distance from the top of the back to the bottom of the chest of shoulder mounts that I have of the animals you asked for are:

Kudu 27"
Oryx 24"
Zebra 23"
Impala 13"
Blesbuck 15"
blue Wildebeest 27"
Red Hartebeast 18"

Also for comparison, both my Black and Common Springbok measure 10"

Hope this helps

BuffyBR, thank you for taking the time to measure your trophies. I was really suprised at how small the dimensions are for a Springbok.

If BaxterB is thinking the same thing I was going to compare these measurements with my trajectories.

Thanks again,

Jim

Singleshot03,

This thread got my curiouity up so I went around and measured my own trophies. My measurements are all with in 1 or 2 inches of BuffyBR's.

Mark

Springbok mature ram just about 12 " top of back to lowest middle part of belly.

If you have a "Dual-X" of similar [Continental] telescope the way in which the animal of known dimensions fits between the croshairs can be used quite well to "measure" or "estimate", but much better than judging or taking a wild guess - the distance to the animal.

Watch out for some variable scopes though in whcih this relationship depends on the magnification setting!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Mounted animals are the size of the form. Presumably, the form manufacturers have some reasonable idea of what size they should be, but I've seen various animals in full body mounts which were clearly smaller or larger than typical life-size (hides can be stretched/spliced or trimmed to fit the forms).

However, the sizes listed above seem pretty much in the ballpark. Offhand, the zebra, which is easily the heaviest, seems small; but you have to remember that zebras are "round", while animals like kudus are somewhat tall and skinny. Also, the Red Hartebeest is a pretty big animal that I would think would be closer to the oryx.

I do believe that 12" is a better on-the-hoof estimate of a springbock than 10". While they are quite small and you could easily put their meager weight (35-40 kg?) into a 10" chest, I believe their shape makes them a little deeper than that. But I'm far from an expert and am happy to be corrected by more experienced folk.

Sorry, just reread BuffyBr's post and realized he is talking shoulder mounts rather than full body mounts. The shoulder mount is some indicator, but each mount form isn't necessarily consistent with the others in how far "back" it reaches on the animal. Some animals have deeper briskets areas as compared to others, so a "shoulder" mount for the zebra, for example, may not fully represent the depth of the animal's chest. Nonetheless, Buffy's measurments are helpful.

Animals are like people. There isn't one size that fits all.

Modern foam taxidermy forms are very realistic in size and details -- but the size measurements of a particular form match the individual animal that they created that form from. On popular animals there is a large quantity of form sizes. On less popular forms, there may only be one size, and the Taxidermist will have to use his artistic abilities to make the form fit the cape.

When a Taxidermist mounts an animal he will take several standard measurements of the animal's cape, then orders a form that is close to those dimensions. With modern foam forms, it's fairly easy for a Taxidermist to re-shape a form to correctly fit the animals cape.

I just looked in a copy of Van Dyke's Taxidermy Supply Catalog. For full body forms, the third measurement that they list on their forms is the "girth of the belly."

On page 149, they list 4 zebra full body forms. The belly girths of these forms are: 79", 83", 87", and 90". That can easily mean several inches difference in the depth of these animals.

I know that when my Taxidermist did the full body mount of my Musk ox, he said he ordered the largest full body form from his supplier, then he spent a full day modifying that form to fit the cape of my Musk ox.

Just for grins, I looked up the girth on Van Dyke's full body elephant form. It's 22 feet!

Buffy,

Great info! I assumed there were some variations in forms, but I certainly didn't realize that there were as many customized sizes as apparently exist. I can't recall ever personally running across a full body mounted zebra (outside of perhaps the Natural History Museum), so I'm surprised at there being enough demand for forms for the supplier to have four different sizes available. A far cry from the days when a taxidermist had to make his own form from paper mache' and cover it with plaster! Some of those old self-made forms resulted in some rather comical-looking mounts.