VMs (f80v) critter identified

[Linda]

I think the reason we are not finding exact matches has less to do with drawing skill and more to do with the fact that the artist was not a copyist at all, but drew things in new ways, either more realistically than had thus far been done traditionally, or full of mnemonic details not usually employed in such ways. 

The ambiguity is likely purposeful, an obfuscation, as well as part of the mnemonic devices embodied in it. Perhaps the parable of the sheep and the goats is referred to. Sheep to the right hand, to be saved, goats to the left.? Possibly reversed, depending on where you are viewing from, north or south.

However, the result is so ambiguous that without context you end up with armadillos and pangolins in the mix. 

To me this is because of the scale-like nature of the body, but i believe this is a non-biological scale mnemonic that refers to mountains. The curve of the stance matches that of the alps, the legs are additional features thereof. The previous page leads us there by travelling up the Spanish, French, and Ligurian coasts to Genoa, then following a river up to Lake Garda, with a couple other lakes shown. This page shows other lakes around the alps, including Constance. Within this context the scales work to define the greater area discussed. Lake Garda would be located in the space between the face and the foreleg. 

I could see Agnus dei being employed as a vague historical mnemonic. I could see the ibex as a visual cue linked to the alps themselves. Armadillos dont fit, but i have thought the Catalan Atlas mountains to look like pangolin scales, although the vms ones more resemble the Italian portolan mountain scale tradition.