Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 16, 2016
Chimp&See Animal Selfies Update!
For an update on the Chimp&See Animal Selfies Project and how you can help @akalan with her project, please read her latest post
https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP0000003/discussions/DCP0000r6y
https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP0000003/discussions/DCP0000r6y
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Chimp&See featured on Field Projects International!
Thank yous and pant hoots to Field Projects International for this great write up about chimpandsee.org!!
Monday, May 9, 2016
Calling *ALL* Chimp&See citizen scientists!
The Chimp&See Science Team is looking for 20 citizen scientists to help with a special research project! The best part? The project involves doing something you are already great at—watching chimpanzee videos!
We are looking for citizen scientists to watch chimpanzee video clips and provide some basic classifications just as you would on Chimp&See. The only difference is that you will get an exclusive look at these videos before any other citizen scientists do. Your involvement in this project will provide a critical contribution to the science behind how Chimp&See works. Sound intriguing?
We are looking for people who consider themselves brand new beginners as well as people who have lots of experience on Chimp&See, and anyone in between.
Please contact us at maureen_mc @ eva.mpg.de as soon as possible if you would like to get involved, and be sure to include your Chimp&See username in the email.
Pant hoots and thanks,
Maureen and The Chimp&See Science Team
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Happy Mother's Day!
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!
For this special day, I wanted to talk a little about some of the moms and babies we've seen on Chimp&See. If you've been with us for some time, you might have noticed that babies of certain species are commonly seen on camera, while we see mainly adults of other species. Why might this be the case? To begin with, certain life history traits will affect how often we get footage of younger animals. For example, species that have large litter sizes, breed multiple times every year, and start reproducing at a young age will be more likely to have young individuals show up on camera. Species that grow very quickly (i.e. they reach adult size sooner) or with high infant mortality are less likely to have young on camera.
Another big factor in determining who we see on camera is behavior. Most of the animals on C&S are mammals, which means, by definition, their infants need milk until they are old enough to eat solid food. This poses a problem for mammal moms: how to continue to get enough calories, while simultaneously caring for a newborn.
For some mammals, the solution is to leave the offspring behind in a den or nest. C&S mammals that use dens or nests include rats, mice, squirrels, mongooses, and cats. Because the babies of these species are hidden away, they are rarely seen on camera.
Another solution is to cache or park the infants. Moms that use this strategy will leave the offspring behind for short periods of time, but will come back to nurse and move the infant. It's similar to nesting, but a nest is often carefully constructed, in a protected location, and used long-term, while a caching spot is a temporary location, and the infant is protected mainly by staying still and quiet. Many C&S species cache or park their young, including all our duiker species, bushbuck, galagos, and pottos. We occasionally get to see these guys as they're moved from spot to spot, but they're a special treat.
Another possible solution is simply to have the infant follow mom, though she may have to change her normal pace a bit. Of the C&S mammals, this is typical behavior for the pig species (red river hogs, bushpigs, giant forest hogs, and warthogs) and for elephants. Since they're following mom, we see these babies relatively frequently.
The last behavior typically used by C&S mammals is infant carrying. All monkey and ape species we see on C&S carry their infants -- including the olive colobus, the only Old World monkey known to carry infants in the mouth! Youngsters of these species are the most common on C&S because they're kept so close to mom.
(As a footnote, these behavior categories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, galagos and pottos park their infants, but they also carry them sometimes too.)
Now for the part we've all been waiting for, the mom and baby montage!
To see and comment on these videos, plus more that didn't quite make the cut, check out the moms and babies collection.
Hope to see you over at Chimp&See -- maybe you'll spot one of these animal bundles of joy!
For this special day, I wanted to talk a little about some of the moms and babies we've seen on Chimp&See. If you've been with us for some time, you might have noticed that babies of certain species are commonly seen on camera, while we see mainly adults of other species. Why might this be the case? To begin with, certain life history traits will affect how often we get footage of younger animals. For example, species that have large litter sizes, breed multiple times every year, and start reproducing at a young age will be more likely to have young individuals show up on camera. Species that grow very quickly (i.e. they reach adult size sooner) or with high infant mortality are less likely to have young on camera.
Another big factor in determining who we see on camera is behavior. Most of the animals on C&S are mammals, which means, by definition, their infants need milk until they are old enough to eat solid food. This poses a problem for mammal moms: how to continue to get enough calories, while simultaneously caring for a newborn.
For some mammals, the solution is to leave the offspring behind in a den or nest. C&S mammals that use dens or nests include rats, mice, squirrels, mongooses, and cats. Because the babies of these species are hidden away, they are rarely seen on camera.
Another solution is to cache or park the infants. Moms that use this strategy will leave the offspring behind for short periods of time, but will come back to nurse and move the infant. It's similar to nesting, but a nest is often carefully constructed, in a protected location, and used long-term, while a caching spot is a temporary location, and the infant is protected mainly by staying still and quiet. Many C&S species cache or park their young, including all our duiker species, bushbuck, galagos, and pottos. We occasionally get to see these guys as they're moved from spot to spot, but they're a special treat.
Another possible solution is simply to have the infant follow mom, though she may have to change her normal pace a bit. Of the C&S mammals, this is typical behavior for the pig species (red river hogs, bushpigs, giant forest hogs, and warthogs) and for elephants. Since they're following mom, we see these babies relatively frequently.
The last behavior typically used by C&S mammals is infant carrying. All monkey and ape species we see on C&S carry their infants -- including the olive colobus, the only Old World monkey known to carry infants in the mouth! Youngsters of these species are the most common on C&S because they're kept so close to mom.
(As a footnote, these behavior categories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, galagos and pottos park their infants, but they also carry them sometimes too.)
Now for the part we've all been waiting for, the mom and baby montage!
To see and comment on these videos, plus more that didn't quite make the cut, check out the moms and babies collection.
Hope to see you over at Chimp&See -- maybe you'll spot one of these animal bundles of joy!
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Annotations done at Cold Fire!
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of all our Chimp and See participants, we've finished classifying another site! Our first East African site in nearly a year, "Cold Fire" was a fun one to work on -- more chimp videos and a higher proportion of chimp videos than any site so far. One particularly hungry old old fellow (all linked videos in highlight reel below) was spotted feeding in over 400 videos! We also saw some monkey species new (or almost new) to C&S: blue monkeys, red-tailed monkeys, olive baboons, and guerezas, and it was only the third site to have video footage of a potto. There were some great daytime videos of a normally nocturnal civet, and we heard the interesting vocalizations of hyrax calling at night. We met bushpigs, close cousins of the red river hogs we saw in West Africa, and saw a beautiful hadada ibis take flight.
Here are some Cold Fire highlights:
Original videos at: ACP000b3ib, ACP000ate2, ACP000az50, ACP000asx9, ACP000asyl, ACP000aytx, ACP000bc4f, ACP000b2cp, ACP000bcdf, ACP000augc
Although Cold Fire videos are done with classification, we're still discussing and naming chimps on the Cold Fire board and we'd love your input! There are also plenty of videos left to classify from other sites, so come over to Chimp & See to discover more fantastic videos like these!
Here are some Cold Fire highlights:
Original videos at: ACP000b3ib, ACP000ate2, ACP000az50, ACP000asx9, ACP000asyl, ACP000aytx, ACP000bc4f, ACP000b2cp, ACP000bcdf, ACP000augc
Although Cold Fire videos are done with classification, we're still discussing and naming chimps on the Cold Fire board and we'd love your input! There are also plenty of videos left to classify from other sites, so come over to Chimp & See to discover more fantastic videos like these!
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