In Panini Select, the animal-pattern parallels are the unnumbered short prints everyone hunts when opening a box. The pattern covers the whole prizm surface: Zebra stripes, Tiger stripes, Elephant skin. They are the most recognisable cards in the product and, having no number, the most debated.
Unnumbered by design. Panini prints no run; their rarity is known from how often they turn up, not from a stamp.
One per format. Each pattern is tied to a box configuration, so knowing where it comes from explains why it is hard to find.
Only three in UFC. Giraffe, Snakeskin, Peacock or Dragon Scale, common in other sports, do not exist in Select UFC 2022 or 2023.
Where each one comes from
Select UFC 2022 was released on 1 July 2022, per Panini's announcement, with four base tiers: Concourse, Premier Level, Octagonside and Mezzanine. Ilia Topuria is in three of them, #23, #262 and #320.
Zebra: Select's reference short print, present in all three tiers and across formats; exclusive to no box.
Tiger and Elephant: exclusive to blaster boxes, the retail format, per the product listing that reproduces Panini's text: “Blaster Exclusive Flash, Tiger & Elephant Prizms”, as this listing shows.
Not on the hobby sheet either. The official hobby sell sheet mentions none of the three: it shows Gold, Tie-Dye, Silver and the signatures.
Ilia Topuria's
The 9 on this list cover Concourse #23 and Octagonside #262 from 2022, with all three patterns each, and Octagonside #250 from 2023. The full parallel list per tier is on the 2022 checklist.
How to read this list
Cards are marked SSP because no number is printed; price follows observed scarcity, not a print run.
They are rookie-year parallels, not the rookie: the explanation is on the Ilia Topuria rookie cards page. Another unnumbered short print with its own page: the White Sparkle.