What is unique or rare about the VM Zodiac signs?

[-JKP-]

As for the maneless lion with blue spots, there's nothing quite like it in zodiac imagery, only a few blue ones and none with spots. The Arabic ones are mostly harvest colors and often have a rider. So no direct parallels...

...but, for the record, I noted a panther painted blue with spots under the paint in an English bestiary from c. 1300 (Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 3466 8º). Note that the illustrator put spots or spotty fur tufts on almost everything... dragons, wolves, cats, cattle, etc. There's even a donkey with blue spots.

This is in the same manuscript that has a blue lion in the same pose as the VMS (which was brought to our attention by another poster, possibly Ellie V). It's a mirror image, but having the tail poke straight up from inside the legs, in conjunction with the lifted far paw, is not a common pose (you can find a green spotted cat, not mirrored, in Pal. Lat. 291 with the back legs reversed, c. 1425).
 

     


Pal. Lat. 291 (southern Germany) also has a zodiac wheel with many of the same attributes as the VMS (clothed Gemini, crayfish, leg-tail lion, no-hand scales, 2-legged archer, long-horned Taurus):



Since the Pal. Lat. series has been scoured for zodiacs by many people other than myself, I'm assuming this specific wheel has been noted by others, as well, but it seems particularly relevant to this thread.

Note that it does not have the crossbow, lizard-Scorpio, or lyre-shaped horns. Not identical, but it is closer to the VMS than others (and one which suggests that maybe there was a common source for certain of these zodiac images). It also has rainbows on 116r (in rybg sequence, which is actually somewhat uncommon). It also has the "pocket-tail" chaperone in the month's labors.