While we’re busy prepping the next NEXT PHASE of the Snapshot project (details coming soon!), we’ll be having guest posts from some of our invaluable undergraduate volunteers here in the University of Minnesota Lion Lab. They are writing a series on some of the lesser-known small animals which inhabit the Serengeti Park. Today, Lexi Vogler shares some information about the minuscule Klipspringer antelope:
The Klipspringer, or Oreotragus oreotragus, is a small antelope that lives on cliffs and rock outcrops in mid-eastern and southern Africa. This mammal weighs up to 18kg and can reach a height of 60cm. It stands on the tips of its hooves, which are adapted for steep and rocky terrains (such as kopjes). In this type of terrain and with their climbing and jumping abilities, the klipspringer can stray away from predators and can obtain an adequate food supply. These animals stand on the ends of their hooves, so they can easily stand with all four hooves close together, easily adapting to the rocky landscape.
Klipspringers have a specially insulated coat that can withstand freezing or extremely hot temperatures. They are extremely adaptable animals, including within their diet. They will feed on the vegetation that grows in between rocks in a kopje, as well as on leaves, shoots, succulents, berries, fruits, seedpods, and green grass. Klipspringers can typically obtain most of their moisture need through their food. They will travel up to 0.5km away from their shelter to forage for food during the dry season.
Socially, the klipspringer typically stays with one mate, and they share a permanent home or territory. They care and guard their offspring together, but it is rare to see two klipspringers make contact with one another. Instead, klipspringers will communicate through scent, sound and sight. They typically move and feed during the nighttime, and will lie in the shade in the afternoon when it starts to become hot.
Stay tuned to discover more interesting facts about these creatures and share in the comments if there are any animals you are particularly curious and would like to know more about!
Pre-Dawn in Serengeti
There are definitely pros to early-morning fieldwork! Heading out to do camera trap experiments often required hitting the road before sun-up, and with the right composition of clouds, you often got to experience beautiful sunrises. Here, you can see the front of my LandRover as we’re about to tackle this swampy stretch of road!
Field Decor
My favorite part of Africa has to be the decorating.
The Giant Warthog Disaster
One of the latest projects Craig Packer has been collaborating on involves trying to study cooperative behavior in lions by tempting these big cats hunt different “toys” – like this life-sized wooden buffalo:
One of the most hilarious disasters of our last field season came as a result of trying to lug all of these over-sized ungulates across South Africa. Apparently, simply ratcheting them on to the roof of your truck is only good until you start going fast enough for the wind to rip up and under them (i.e. anything over about 40 miles an hour). I have great pictures of Craig trudging across the highway to retrieve bits and pieces of giant warthogs, wildebeest, and other large wooden creatures whose sudden appearance flying off of our car must have completely baffled our fellow motorists.
Reintroducing the Wild Dog
Snack Time
One of the neat carnivores I got to work with in South Africa that we don’t experience much in Tanzania is the African wild (or “painted”) dog. These endangered carnivores live and hunt in highly social packs which, like wolves, are dominated by an alpha male and female. African wild dogs used to roam the Serengeti, but vanished in the park in the early 1990s due in part to diseases such as rabies and canine distemper contracted from domestic dogs.
During my first field season, I was fortunate enough to watch a pack of these animals being re-introduced into the park, and several more releases have taken place since. In total, over 60 wild dogs are now recolonizing Serengeti — we haven’t seen any in our camera trap areas yet, but there are rumors that they might be wandering through soon!
Serengeti from Above
The best part about having a new season of photographs for me is the chance to “visit” Serengeti from the comfort of my own office. My research plans for 2016 don’t involve any trips back to Tanzania (mostly, I’ll be finishing up some experiments down in South Africa instead), so leaving Serengeti this last year was a very bittersweet experience. On the plus side, I did manage to grab a lift on one of the small bush planes that fly across the park, and the views were spectacular!
Dive into Season 9
We promise that this one was worth the wait – hot-off-the-press Season 9 is one of our largest seasons yet, with over a million images (okay, okay, 300,000 some-odd “capture events”) to explore from our last year in the field! Head on over to www.snaphshotserengeti.org to join the search!
As we move through this new season, we’ll be updating regularly to share results that are emerging from our recent analyses, describe the brand new teaching tools we’re developing using this data to introduce young scientists to the world of research, and let you meet some of the branch new faces joining the Snapshot Serengeti team. Don’t forget to ask questions, post cool and unique pictures, and follow us on Facebook and through our Zooniverse discussion boards!
Thank you again for all of your effort in looking through these photos — this project wouldn’t be possible without you.
Haunted Serengeti
Happy October! Many of our Snapshot night photos are pretty spooky looking — mysterious eyeshine, strange lights, ghostly figures — submit your favorite “haunted” Snapshot image to our blog (comment below) or on our Facebook page and I’ll repost some of the creepiest!
More mud
So much for being clean again…
Norbert, our Tanzanian field assistant, always laughs when I come in from the field covered in mud. He takes pictures each time, telling me that “when I write my book” I need to publish these photos to show people that “to get PhD, you must be THIS much mud!”
All About Lions
Guess who just gave a fancy talk about Lion Project and Snapshot Serengeti!
Major props to TCS Expeditions and the Four Seasons giving me a chance to talk about our project and spend the day in such a beautiful resort. I highly recommend the showers — feels good to be clean again!
Snapshot Serengeti 