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We bring you the finest handmade stuffed plush animals in the World
Big Furry Friends is your source for Lifesize, Life Size, Life-like and Realistic Large Plush Stuffed Animals
Not just great gifts for children and adults, these beautiful pieces make great corporate gifts, baby gifts and display pieces for homes, office and businesses, theatrical displays, commercial and movie props......
All our animals are hand-made from of the finest plush stuffed animal artisans in the world. They are life-like, some lifesize and all realistic with careful attention to detail. They make an impressive gift whether corporate or personal, but also make a statement as a corporate mascot or display at your company's headquarters. Our plush animals are used for staging homes for sale, creating themed weddings, conventions and events where these furry friends add a real 'wow' factor. Our life-like plush stuffed animals have also been used in museums, as well as theatrical props in movies, commercials and on live stage productions all over the world. What is contained here is a sampling of what our artisans have to offer...
Do you need a true-to life size T-Rex? A giant Wooly Mammoth or other animal for your Museum?
If you can imagine it, we can create it for you!
Giselle Gazelle - Luxury Handmade Lifelike Stuffed Plush Animals
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Several in each Category
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 Giselle Gazelle
Handmade
Size: 20"L x 6"W x 28"H
$ 134
Sold out until 2011
This is a hand-crafted collection of realistic plush, sometimes lifesize animals. The "coat" of each animal is meticulously cut by hand, never stamped out by machine. Gentle paws, swishing tails, and especially soulful eyes and faces are lovingly detailed to give each character a life-like look.
The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (?pp?p?taµ??), is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae (the other is the Pygmy Hippopotamus.) The hippopotamus is the third largest land animal (after the elephant and the white rhinoceros) and the heaviest extant artiodactyl, despite being considerably shorter than the giraffe.
The hippopotamus is semi-aquatic, inhabiting rivers and lakes where territorial bulls preside over a stretch of river and groups of 5 to 30 females and young. During the day they remain cool by staying in the water or mud; reproduction and childbirth both occur in water. They emerge at dusk to graze on grass. While hippopotamuses rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos are not territorial on land.
Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, their closest living relatives are cetaceans (whales, porpoises, etc.) from which they diverged about ~verisimilus/Timeline/Timeline.php?Ma=55"55 million years ago. The common ancestor of whales and hippos split from other even-toed ungulates around ~verisimilus/Timeline/Timeline.php?Ma=60" million years ago. The earliest known hippopotamus fossils, belonging to the genus Kenyapotamus in Africa, date to around ~verisimilus/Timeline/Timeline.16 million years ago.
The hippopotamus is recognizable by its barrel-shaped torso, enormous mouth and teeth, nearly hairless body, stubby legs and tremendous size. It is the third-largest land mammal by weight (between 1½ and 3 tonnes), behind the white rhinoceros (1½ to 3½ tonnes) and both species of elephant (3 to 9 tonnes). Despite its stocky shape and short legs, it can easily outrun a human. Hippos have been clocked at 30 km/h (19 mph) over short distances. The hippopotamus is one of the most aggressive creatures in the world and is often regarded as the most ferocious animal in Africa. There are an estimated 125,000 to 150,000 hippos throughout Sub-Saharan Africa; Zambia (40,000) and Tanzania (20,000–30,000) possess the largest populations. They are still threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat and ivory canine teeth.
Five subspecies of hippos have been described based on morphological differences in their skulls and geographical differences:
 H. a. amphibius – (the nominate subspecies) which stretched from Egypt, where they are now extinct, south up the Nile River to Tanzania and Mozambique. H. a. kiboko – in the Horn of Africa, in Kenya and Somalia. Kiboko is the Swahili word for hippo. Broader nasals and more hollowed interorbital region. H. a. capensis – from Zambia to South Africa. Most flattened skull of the subspecies. H. a. tschadensis – throughout Western Africa to, as the name suggests, Chad. Slightly shorter and wider face, with prominent orbits. H. a. constrictus – in Angola, the southern Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia. Named for its deeper preorbital constriction.The suggested subspecies were never widely used or validated by field biologists; the described morphological differences were small enough that they could have resulted from simple variation in non-representative samples. Genetic analyses have tested the existence of three of these putative subspecies. A study examining mitochondrial DNA from skin biopsies taken from 13 sampling locations, considered genetic diversity and structure among hippo populations across the continent. The authors found low but significant genetic differentiation among H. a. amphibius, H. a. capensis, and H. a. kiboko. Neither H.a.tschadensis nor H.a.constrictus have been tested.
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