Snapshot Gems
Whilst we wait for season 12 of Snapshot Serengeti to be launched we have put together some of the great images from the previous seasons. Snapshot Serengeti has been going for eight years with its 200+ camera-traps never sleeping (except for the occasional malfunction/animal destruction). Its just possible that you may have missed some of these great images during that time, so sit back and enjoy.
Ostrich
Whilst we are waiting for the next season of Snapshot Serengeti images I have been reviewing some of the amazing images that season 11 turned up. I always have to remind myself that these cameras do not have some avid photographer sat behind them snapping away at the opportune moment but are activated merely by sensing a change in heat within their detection zone. It is truly amazing how often we get stunning images.
Here a beautiful male ostrich struts across the field of view showing off his amazingly pink legs. The bare parts of male ostrich are usually a pale grey to pink colour but during the breeding season hormones influence the pigmentation and a flush of red blazes through his neck and legs. Given the extent of these legs and neck contrasted with the bold black and white feathers it makes for an arresting sight. Compared with the drab browny grey of the female the male is a real show off.
What’s strange about this scenario is that in most bird species where the male changes feather of bare parts colour it is the female alone that rears the chicks. The colourful male would perhaps attract too much predator attention around the vulnerable nest or chicks. In ostrich though, the male takes his share of sitting on eggs and looking after chicks. In fact he and his primary female will take turns incubating a clutch of eggs that typically include both hers and other females eggs so he will generally have more invested in the chicks as a direct parent than the female who may only be ‘aunt’ to some of the chicks.
I guess the shear size, power and speed of the ostrich, who is perfectly adapted to the open plains of the Serengeti, means he can afford the fancy show of pink legs if it means winning the ladies.
A Picture Worth A Thousand Words – Part 2
I have written about this before, I know but this series of images has got me going again.
The Snapshot Serengeti images are great and they have captured some stunning stuff over the years (melanistic serval, oxpeckers roosting at night on giraffe, a buffalo hunt by lions) and individually they have produced some amazing portraits but every once in a while, the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ doesn’t quite ring true.
I posted images of a male seemingly strolling through the savannah a while back, musing on what he had been up to. The other day whilst browsing through images I found more parts to the picture. More images of him moving at different times and a female.
I am sure that Snapshot Serengeti followers could add to this series of images if we delve further but I was intrigued.
What’s happening? Is it a male and female spending some days together whilst mating (as happens with lions)? Or are there other pride members around? The female looks as though she has blood staining her face so perhaps, they have been feasting on a kill, alternately moving back and forth to water or shade between snacking.
It is one of those instances when you would like the camera to just swivel a bit to see if we can learn more but technology (or at least affordable tech) has not quite reached that state yet.
So, we will just have to sit back and enjoy what we can see, a pair of very full looking handsome lions and let our imaginations do the rest. Sometimes no knowing is part of the fun.
The Lone Lion
Kalamas and Lakes pride female Photo Credit: KopeLion, Ingela Jansson
It seems as though when it comes to lion ecology most of the experts seem to agree that male coalitions are usually the most successful at holding on to females and siring cubs. Certainly when take-overs happen it is usually the coalition with more members that wins the day and lone males find it hard to stand their ground. Numbers seem to count.
Of course that isn’t to say that single males can’t have fun or success. Take Kalamas, a male known to us in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. He is a nomadic male who wanders far and wide across the area even daring to take trips into the Crater itself, an area that in terms of lions is heavily defended by resident males, competition is very strong there and really not a place for a none resident lone male to be seen.
So what is so different about Kalamas. Well firstly he doesn’t seem concerned about the competition. Earlier this year whilst monitoring the Crater Lion’s Ingela Jansson of KopeLion project spotted a very distinctive dark maned male that she recognised as Kalamas. The last time he had been spotted in the Crater was in November 2015 but this time there he was in full view lounging around mating with one of the Lakes pride females. In the background four contesting males could be heard roaring their presence.
Kalamas ignored them and had the audacity to stay put in the crater with the female for three days before walking back up the steep Crater slope and out onto the open plains of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area where despite being surrounded by Maasai herders and their live stock he managed to stay out of trouble.
A few weeks later however we received a frantic message early one morning to say that Kalamas was sitting out in the open with many herders starting to gather. Fearing some sort of conflict our team rushed to the area, luckily fairly close to headquarters. Once there we could see that people were sensibly keeping a safe distance and approaching by car it was evident that Kalamas had been fighting. He showed deep wounds characteristic of fighting male lions and there was much blood splattered around.
He attempted to stand but couldn’t quite make it and so we feared he may have been fatally injured.
We decided to stay around and monitor the situation; Kalamas just lay there for many hours. As the sun climbed to its midday point kalamas managed to drag himself into the shade of our vehicle where he remained for the rest of the day. Just as we were starting to wonder what on earth to do next, with night fall approaching, Kalamas took us totally by surprise and stood straight up, shook himself gently and, rather shakily started to walk towards the safety of a well treed gully. Satisfied that we had done all we could and that Kalamas would take care of himself we left.
For the next few weeks we monitored his movements and he seemed to lay low, recovering, but you can’t keep a good lion down. Far from learning his lesson about encroaching on other male’s territories he has since been seen in the presence of other females from the Crater rim. His modus operandi seems to be to hang around on the periphery and entice the ladies away for a few days at a time. They just don’t seem to be able to get enough of him. Something about that Jon Snowesque mane of dark shaggy dark hair.
It is an interesting tactic. We ponder whether perhaps mating with pride females belonging to other males in this sneaky way may mean that when (and if) they give birth the resident male is duped into believing that Kalamas’s offspring are their own.
It is certainly a great way for Kalamas to get as many females as possible but not have the burden of looking after any of the offspring.
It is certainly an unusual story and far from the norm. It remains to be seen if Kalamas was at all successful or if the resident males were harder to fool than he imagined. We are looking out for cubs with dark manes though.
The ladies just love Kalamas Photo Credit: KopeLion, Ingela Jansson
Merry Christmas from the Snapshot Serengeti Team
The last month has seen a new batch of Snapshot Serengeti Images uploaded to the Zooniverse. There seems to be a high portion of really stunning images amongst the 40000 odd that were uploaded in this batch. Now there is no rhyme nor reason for this as the camera-traps are impartial, they simply snap away when an animal triggers them. It is pure luck if the resultant image is a perfect portrait or a tip of a horn or tail.
Of course, as scientists we don’t so much care about pretty pictures as being able at least to id the animals involved but no one is immune to a great image and so we at Snapshot Serengeti give a great big thanks to the animals of the Serengeti for being so cooperative when it comes to our camera-traps.
As you classify the images do remember to flag any really special ones for everyone to enjoy.
Christmas is approaching and so from all the team at Snapshot Serengeti Merry Christmas. Its been a big year for us moving over to the new system and joining up with Snapshot Safari, thanks for sticking with us through the teething problems and a big thank you for all your classifications over 2018.
A Spiky Surprise
There is one little animal in Europe that is loved by all, immortalised in children’s books, welcomed by gardeners and flagship of the realisation that our mammal populations may be declining due to our very own actions. Over in the States although not native these same creatures are kept as pets (that’s another story and not such a good one). Although it’s hardly a creature to cuddle or pet they are thought of as very cute, something to do with that snuffling around your garden in dry leaves and, getting all snoozy, having to sleep away the winter in a cosy corner. Yes, I write of the hedgehog.
Now, why, I hear you ask is she writing about a European mammal on a blog about the Serengeti? Well it may come as a surprise to some to find out that there are in fact 18 species of spiny hedgehog found across Europe, Asia and Africa. Six species are present in Africa. The North African hedgehog (Atelerix algirus) extends its range across the Mediterranean belt of North Africa and Iberian Peninsula as well as the Balearic and Canary islands. The long-eared hedgehog (Hemiechinus auritus) touches into Libya and Egypt and the desert hedgehog (Paraechinus aethiopicus) a true Saharan specialist. The last two species are also found through Arabia and Asia. The remaining three species are solely found in Africa; the southern African hedgehog (Atelerix frontalis), Somali hedgehog (Atelerix sclateri) and the four-toed hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris).
The four-toed hedgehog is found across West, Central and East Africa as far as the Zambezi River and so is the species that is found in the Serengeti. As far as I know we have never had a capture event from our camera traps of this enigmatic little creature but please let me know if someone has come across one.
In European culture where woodlands are seen as wildlife havens most people would associate the hedgehog with forests or at the very least the edges of forests and hedgerows where indeed this species is well at home but its African cousins are rather different in their habitat preferences. The four-toed prefers the drier regions and is partial to grasslands and according to The Handbook of the Mammals of the World vol 8 it especially likes overgrazed regions with dense ungulate populations. All that trampled grass and dung supports plenty of insects for it to munch. Well that sounds just like the Serengeti to me!
Although insects make up a large part of the diet they are omnivorous and will eat fungi and fruits as well as other plant matter. A little known fact, they will also kill small vertebrates like frogs, lizards and mice and are known to take on even venomous snakes. Their spines are great protection from the bite of an angry snake.
As formidable as those spines are it is the ability to curl up into a ball that is their true defence. Now they don’t just tuck their heads in and hope for the best, the skin that the spines are attached to is very flexible and is edged by a strong band like muscle that is attached to the forehead. When it is contracted it acts like a drawstring on a bag that holds in the body, head and limbs with the spines closing up the seal. It works remarkably well but inevitably certain animals have learned how to unzip the bag, honey badgers and eagle-owls are amongst those experts in the Serengeti.
As a family hedgehogs are known to perform a bizarre act known as self-anointing. The hedgehog will chew and lick a substance until it has a mouth full of saliva and then with acrobatic contortions it will plaster this saliva all over its body, apparently they do this in a frenzied manor and it is quite hard to distract them once in the process. What is unclear is why they do it. There is no obvious reason. Studies have shown every age group performing self-anointing including nestlings whose eyes have not even opened. They only thing that stands out is that strong smells and tastes seem to trigger the behaviour such as dog or fox urine and a whole host of human made items such as leather, polish or nylon stockings. I am not even going to ask what the scientific research question was when they discovered those three!
So from Mrs Tiggy-Winkle (Beatrix Potter) to sonic the hedgehog we may all be very familiar with this loveable creature but perhaps we don’t know all there is to know. Keep your eyes out for the first Snapshot Serengeti camera-trapping.
Four-toed hedgehog
Image: Author Jkasui, Wikimedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Snapshot of a Crossroads
When we think of Snapshot Serengeti we think about the massive array of 225 camera-traps that are spread over 1125 km2 in the Serengeti National Park permanently clicking away. Partly this is fostered by the fact that when citizen scientists help out classifying images for the project they are randomly assigned images from a mixture of the 225 camera-traps rather than a sequential set from one camera. This is done so that each member of the community gets the chance to see a good range of different animals rather than, say, getting a camera-trap that was triggered 1000’s of times by grass.
For the most part anyway, people are concentrating so hard on the animals in the image that the scenery in the back ground is almost incidental. Regular contributors though will be aware that there are one or two camera-traps that are in very recognisable locations for example one trained on a group of boulders and one on a log. For some reason these spots seem to produce some really memorable images; the log was the scene of our melanistic serval as well as lion cubs, the boulder gave us some stunning images of spotted eagle-owl.
Recently the most epic capture event ever on Snapshot Serengeti surfaced of a pride of lions hunting a buffalo (if you missed it look here, https://www.facebook.com/SnapshotSerengeti/). That sequence was captured at a special little spot in the Serengeti, Dik-Dik Corner. The view is basically of a lone tree standing at a three-way cross road in animal tracks. There seems to be a pair of dik dik who hold this area central to their territory and they appear regularly, hence the name, but they are certainly not the only ones.
Here is a slide show of the passing wildlife at Dik Dik corner.
Of course these are not the only critters to have passed this way but this selection really shows how the animals follow the trails, something camera-trap researchers have used to their advantage over the years.
Summertime
Butterflies on buddleia
Its summer time again and that means the research teams are out in the field collecting data. The Snapshot Safari team have been checking up on all the camera trap projects dotted across Africa and adding more to the list at the same time as clocking up adventure stories from their travels. Snapshot Serengeti’s Dr Michael Anderson and his team are continuing with their resource partitioning research in the Serengeti and using the opportunity to check up on the condition of our camera traps, probably, as they do each year, replacing one or two that have malfunctioned or been damaged beyond repair.
So whilst they are doing their part for science I am stuck here in France behind my computer catching up with report writing. Though being summer and me an ecologist it is so very easy to get distracted by the outside world.
This year has been a bonanza year for invertebrate locally. The spring started with a mass eruption of the invasive box moth (Cydalima perspectalis). Literally every blooming flower was coated, snow like with their white bodies; one lime tree in our garden we estimated at over 100 000 moths. The caterpillars have decimated the local box (Boxus spp) forests but I was beginning to wonder what effect the millions of moths would have on food resources for other insects. I needn’t have worried, the box moths have gone and summer blooms have brought out hundreds of other butterflies and beetles, bees and spiders. It is an entomologist’s heaven out there.
This seems to have had a knock on effect in the birds. Never have I discovered so many active birds’ nests near to my house. Several rounds of blackbirds, chaffinches and black red-starts have fledged already and the hedges have been awash with the calls of nightingales, black caps and wrens. The air positively rings with the sound of begging baby birds.
Just two meters from my balcony there is a chaffinch nest in the hibiscus with four babies ready to fledge. It is so close that I barely need binoculars to watch the goings on. This is always a great delight for an ecologist or naturalist because it gives you just that little bit more insight to the nesting habits of common birds.
At first appearance it seems just the female was caring for the young birds but then I realised that every time she arrived, flying in at the base of an adjacent bush and making her way to the nest in stealth mode there was another chaffinch calling loudly from a high point in a not too distant tree. It didn’t take too long to realise that this was the male acting as decoy to draw the attention of any would be predators away from the real action. Once the female finished stuffing hungry beaks with juicy insects and flew off, the male was right behind her only to reappear in his tree top squawking seconds before she arrived back with another beak-full.
Thanks to this pairs faith in nesting close to my house I have had lots of time to watch the great team effort of these little common birds.
So whilst feeling somewhat jealous of my team colleagues who are out enjoying themselves in the African sun it is worth remembering just how much goes on under our very own noses and just how wonderful nature is.
New and Improved Image Batch
Last week the amazing community of classifiers on Snapshot Serengeti managed to complete the current batch of images. That doesn’t mean that this season is done with. It used to be that the whole season would be uploaded all at once on to the Zooniverse platform but these days with ever increasing image sizes and plenty more projects taking part space has become a bit of an issue. So now we upload in batches.
Normally we would have the new one ready to go straight away but as long time followers of Snapshot Serengeti may have noticed we have been having some image quality problems since swapping over to a new Panoptes platform.
We have finally found someone who is able to sort out this problem for us and he is working on it as we speak but the Snapshot Safari team decided that delaying the new batch of images for a short while to bring you better quality images to classify was worth the wait.
So we will be back shortly, new and improved and hope that it will improve your experience on the site.
In the meantime here is a sequence of cute elephant interaction captured in the last batch. Enjoy.
The Race
Recently the science team behind Snapshot Serengeti, lead by Dr Michael Anderson, were wandering around the plains going about their latest research (more about that soon) when they got to witness a sight of high intensity, namely a bit of large predator interaction.
The drama occurred around an area known as the Maasi Kopjes. The team at this stage were in their vehicle, as a lioness was nearby, when they noticed a lone cheetah wandering into the lioness’s territory.
The cheetah is obviously anxious as can be seen in this image.
Nervously attentive cheetah
The lioness quickly picks up the intruders scent and as Michael tells me used their vehicle as cover to stalk closer to the cheetah.
Lioness watching cheetah
Initially the cheetah was unaware of its impending doom but the lioness’s indignation at the intrusion possibly affected her stealth and the cheetah finally noticed her approach.
The race was on. The big cat race.
From these shots you can see the sudden acceleration of the cheetah and yes, it got away, living to see another day and the lioness happily securing her domain on her territory.
Perhaps you will be lucky enough to see both these animals on our camera-traps!
Thanks to Dr Michael Anderson for sharing his Photo’s with us.
Snapshot Serengeti 