After a brief zooniverse site-wide outage last week - we are back!
A big thank you to Zooniverse for putting this great intro video together featuring our amazing moderator Laura ( @LauraKLynn ) , also featured is our incredible field site manager Heather Cohen ( @heathenchimp ) setting up a camera at the current Chimp&See site : Sunlit Ruins !
Showing posts with label camtrap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label camtrap. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Around the Zooniverse: Chimp&See featuring our mod Laura K Lynn!
Friday, February 12, 2021
Happy Lunar New Year – The Year of the Ox!
Today starts the new lunar year – also called the Chinese New Year, but celebrated in many Asian countries. 2021 is the Year of the Ox and as every year, we want to take the opportunity to highlight the respective species – or a close African relative – from the Chimp&See cameratrap video footage. This year, it is of course the forest buffalo!
African forest buffalos (Syncerus caffer nanus) are a subspecies of the African buffalo – smaller than the ones you see in the savannahs of South and East Africa, but still impressive in their build. Adults of both sexes have short C-shaped horns that point back. Coloration is dark reddish to brown with an even darker line down the spine and darker lower legs. The ears have adorable black and white fringes.
In the past five years since we started with your help to analyze our video footage, we’ve seen forest buffalos relatively rarely. This all changed with starting the Twin Oaks (Loango, Gabon) site in collaboration with the Ozouga Loango Chimpanzee Project. The mixed landscape consisting of several habitat types varying from coastal lagoons, mangrove swamps, coastal forest, secondary and primary forest and open savannah seem to be ideally suited for this species. They can graze in the forest clearings and use the wetter habitats for wallowing to keep insects away. They usually have some help with the latter part from yellow-billed oxpeckers cleaning patiently their coats.
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| Two yellow-billed oxpeckers cleaning a forest buffalo's fur. Original video here. |
Forest buffalos are seen at night and day. They sometimes discover our cameratrap and react to this in different ways. Please enjoy some video highlights from our forest buffalos, have some good Asian food of your choice, and a happy and prosperous new year!
Saturday, February 1, 2020
The very Best of 2019!
2019 has been a great year for Chimp&See. We re-launched our online citizen science project on the new Zooniverse platform after a thinking, tinkering, and testing phase that took us longer than we had hoped it would. But we finished the beta testing in April, tinkered a bit more, and re-opened the Chimp&See project in mid-July 2019 with two new exciting sites: a savannah-woodland research area in West Africa called “Xenon Bloom” and a rainforest habitat, our first in region B and home of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees called “New Dragonfly”.
The project attracted again many volunteers helping us to classify and annotate our video clips. To date, more than 1,700 old and new volunteers are active and made over 300,000 classifications. We already identified quite a number of chimpanzees (see below for the volunteers’ favorite individuals) and could finally study algae fishing in chimpanzees up close with our cameratrap footage.
After leading the polls right from the beginning our lovely and strong Beatrice has to share the win of the "Chimp of the year 2019" with Ozzy! His votes made a big jump up in the last day. No doubt, he has fans, too. So, we have two winners: Beatrice, a female adult with at least one offspring in tow and Ozzy, an elderly looking adult male, who enjoys his food.
The project attracted again many volunteers helping us to classify and annotate our video clips. To date, more than 1,700 old and new volunteers are active and made over 300,000 classifications. We already identified quite a number of chimpanzees (see below for the volunteers’ favorite individuals) and could finally study algae fishing in chimpanzees up close with our cameratrap footage.
So, 2019 was quite a highlight for the team!
In December then, we asked you about your “Best of 2019” – your biggest surprise, creepiest and funniest clips, the best camera reaction, and of course your favorite chimpanzees. We compiled all nominations, made poll, and here are the results from your votes:
Favorite chimp(s): Beatrice and Ozzy
After leading the polls right from the beginning our lovely and strong Beatrice has to share the win of the "Chimp of the year 2019" with Ozzy! His votes made a big jump up in the last day. No doubt, he has fans, too. So, we have two winners: Beatrice, a female adult with at least one offspring in tow and Ozzy, an elderly looking adult male, who enjoys his food.
The biggest surprise
The creepiest clip
The funniest clip
And last, but not least: the very best camera reaction
If you want to see all the nominees check out the nomination playlist or the original Talk thread.
Thanks to all who voted, nominated, classified, and tagged videos at Chimp&See! We hope to see you around furthermore this year. Please come over and discover the secret life of chimpanzees.
Thanks to all who voted, nominated, classified, and tagged videos at Chimp&See! We hope to see you around furthermore this year. Please come over and discover the secret life of chimpanzees.
Friday, December 6, 2019
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Year of the pig – let’s talk about hogs!
According to the Chinese (Lunar) calendar and starting today, 2019 is the Year of the Pig. We will take this opportunity to have a look the hogs (pigs) at Chimp&See as we’ve just realized, we have never really talked about them before and don’t have a formal guide (yet!).
Chimp&See features four different hog species with some great video footage. They all have large body sizes, a wedge-shaped big head and the signature out-turned huge canine tusks in common. But a closer look at fur, adaptations, and also location of occurrence shows striking differences.
A short video guide from our camera trap footage - and more details below.
Giant forest hogs (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni) can be seen in all African forest habitats. As the name suggest, they are the biggest African hog, heavily build with a big, sturdy head and broad, naked face. They have often rather spare dark fur with the lighter orangey-brown skin shining through. Variation in coat length and density and in different lighting situations let them appear in a wide range from light-brown and hairless to almost black with a thick fur. Male giant forest hogs can have enormously swollen preorbital glands (shown in the screenshot below) that are considered as a type of scent glands, but could also have anti-pathogenic effects.
Red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus) can be seen often and in big groups at almost every West and Central African site. Their shiny red coat is short and very well visible in the forest. A clear blonde dorsal crest is usually seen. The faces are dark with white cheek tufts; the ears have adorably looking light tassels.
Bushpigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) have the coolest and most diverse color morphs of all African wild pigs. Their coat color ranges from black / brown / gray to red and blondish and is accentuated by white applications at the face and towards the dorsal crest. They have also these cute ear tassels, usually in black. Although subspecies are identified, the color diversity is seen in single groups of these animals. The fur is quite long and looks shaggy, especially after a good rain. Bushpigs are the smallest of the four species and are found at our Eastern sites, like Restless Star and Green Snowflake. More towards central Africa – where they meet the red river hog home range – a zone of interbreeding between these two closely related species can occur.
The warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) lives predominantly in arid savannah habitat like at our West African site Dry Lake. It is most easily distinguishable from the other hogs because of its unique body build. The warthog body is more barrel-shaped due to the lack of subcutaneous adipose tissue and the legs are longer. In addition, warthogs fancy a mane that reaches from the head down to the spine. Because of their long legs and a rather short neck, we often see them kneeling down to feed or drink.
A detailed field guide for hogs and other ungulates will be part of the new Chimp&See interface to be launched soon.
For everyone celebrating the Chinese New Year, all fans of hogs, and just everyone – we wish you a happy and successful 2019. Come over to Chimp&See to check out camera trap video footage from Africa’s wildlife!
Chimp&See features four different hog species with some great video footage. They all have large body sizes, a wedge-shaped big head and the signature out-turned huge canine tusks in common. But a closer look at fur, adaptations, and also location of occurrence shows striking differences.
A short video guide from our camera trap footage - and more details below.
Giant forest hogs (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni) can be seen in all African forest habitats. As the name suggest, they are the biggest African hog, heavily build with a big, sturdy head and broad, naked face. They have often rather spare dark fur with the lighter orangey-brown skin shining through. Variation in coat length and density and in different lighting situations let them appear in a wide range from light-brown and hairless to almost black with a thick fur. Male giant forest hogs can have enormously swollen preorbital glands (shown in the screenshot below) that are considered as a type of scent glands, but could also have anti-pathogenic effects.
 |
| A giant forest hog with enormously swollen preorbital glands. |
Red river hogs (Potamochoerus porcus) can be seen often and in big groups at almost every West and Central African site. Their shiny red coat is short and very well visible in the forest. A clear blonde dorsal crest is usually seen. The faces are dark with white cheek tufts; the ears have adorably looking light tassels.
 |
| Red river hog |
Bushpigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) have the coolest and most diverse color morphs of all African wild pigs. Their coat color ranges from black / brown / gray to red and blondish and is accentuated by white applications at the face and towards the dorsal crest. They have also these cute ear tassels, usually in black. Although subspecies are identified, the color diversity is seen in single groups of these animals. The fur is quite long and looks shaggy, especially after a good rain. Bushpigs are the smallest of the four species and are found at our Eastern sites, like Restless Star and Green Snowflake. More towards central Africa – where they meet the red river hog home range – a zone of interbreeding between these two closely related species can occur.
 |
| The multi-colored bushpig |
The warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) lives predominantly in arid savannah habitat like at our West African site Dry Lake. It is most easily distinguishable from the other hogs because of its unique body build. The warthog body is more barrel-shaped due to the lack of subcutaneous adipose tissue and the legs are longer. In addition, warthogs fancy a mane that reaches from the head down to the spine. Because of their long legs and a rather short neck, we often see them kneeling down to feed or drink.
 |
| A warthog dropped to its knees to feed. |
For everyone celebrating the Chinese New Year, all fans of hogs, and just everyone – we wish you a happy and successful 2019. Come over to Chimp&See to check out camera trap video footage from Africa’s wildlife!
Thursday, August 9, 2018
New paper: An assessment of the efficacy of camera traps for studying demographic composition and variation in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
New seminal paper from the PanAf's Maureen McCarthy and colleagues at the Tai Chimpanzee Project
An assessment of the efficacy of camera traps for studying demographic composition and variation in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
Abstract
Demographic factors can strongly influence patterns of behavioral variation in animal societies. Traditionally, these factors are measured using longitudinal observation of habituated social groups, particularly in social animals like primates. Alternatively, noninvasive biomonitoring methods such as camera trapping can allow researchers to assess species occupancy, estimate population abundance, and study rare behaviors. However, measures of fine‐scale demographic variation, such as those related to age and sex structure or subgrouping patterns, pose a greater challenge. Here, we compare demographic data collected from a community of habituated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï Forest using two methods: camera trap videos and observational data from long‐term records. By matching data on party size, seasonal variation in party size, measures of demographic composition, and changes over the study period from both sources, we compared the accuracy of camera trap records and long‐term data to assess whether camera trap data could be used to assess such variables in populations of unhabituated chimpanzees. When compared to observational data, camera trap data tended to underestimate measures of party size, but revealed similar patterns of seasonal variation as well as similar community demographic composition (age/sex proportions) and dynamics (particularly emigration and deaths) during the study period. Our findings highlight the potential and limitations of camera trap surveys for estimating fine‐scale demographic composition and variation in primates. Continuing development of field and statistical methods will further improve the usability of camera traps for demographic studies.
Demographic factors can strongly influence patterns of behavioral variation in animal societies. Traditionally, these factors are measured using longitudinal observation of habituated social groups, particularly in social animals like primates. Alternatively, noninvasive biomonitoring methods such as camera trapping can allow researchers to assess species occupancy, estimate population abundance, and study rare behaviors. However, measures of fine‐scale demographic variation, such as those related to age and sex structure or subgrouping patterns, pose a greater challenge. Here, we compare demographic data collected from a community of habituated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in the Taï Forest using two methods: camera trap videos and observational data from long‐term records. By matching data on party size, seasonal variation in party size, measures of demographic composition, and changes over the study period from both sources, we compared the accuracy of camera trap records and long‐term data to assess whether camera trap data could be used to assess such variables in populations of unhabituated chimpanzees. When compared to observational data, camera trap data tended to underestimate measures of party size, but revealed similar patterns of seasonal variation as well as similar community demographic composition (age/sex proportions) and dynamics (particularly emigration and deaths) during the study period. Our findings highlight the potential and limitations of camera trap surveys for estimating fine‐scale demographic composition and variation in primates. Continuing development of field and statistical methods will further improve the usability of camera traps for demographic studies.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
New publication using Chimp&See data investigates nocturnal activity in wild chimpanzees
The Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee (PanAf) in collaboration with Dr. Nikki Tagg Nama (PGS Cameroon, Royal Zoological Society of Antwerp) have just published a research paper investigating the nocturnal activities of wild chimpanzees. Using data from camera trap videos annotated on Chimp&See and from the PanAf collection, the researchers have been interested in the influence of different environmental factors that could lead to more nighttime activities of chimpanzees and possibly disturb their sleeping patterns.
Chimpanzees are rarely active at night after building their nests. So, it was a surprise for me and other volunteers at Chimp&See to see them on our camera trap videos at almost all sites at least occasionally walking in the darkness. We decided to tag and collect those videos. While only a tiny fraction of videos at Chimp&See show what we call the “nightchimps”, it is an interesting phenomenon and leads to questions about what general or site-specific environmental circumstances might cause more or less nocturnal activities.
After starting and curating the Chimp&See “nightchimps” collection, we got the chance to join the project to get a different perspective on the science part and support the science team beyond our regular Chimp&See moderators’ tasks.
Using the nighttime video clips identified and tagged by our volunteers and video material from other PanAf research sites, as well as associated data from environmental surveys of these sites, this study provides a first comprehensive analysis of nocturnal chimpanzee activity in the wild spanning their range and all four subspecies. The study shows that chimpanzees indeed are active at night on the terrestrial camera trap videos at almost all sites (18 out of 22 in the study), but only infrequently, making it a rare behavior still. From all observed chimpanzee activity in the videos only 1.8% occurred at night, but this amount differed from site to site considerably, from 0 videos to more than 8% of all observed chimpanzee activity at one site. The video material shows chimpanzees mostly traveling during these times, but also some social activities and feeding.
The researchers then tested whether different environmental factors like percentage of mature forest at a given site, the abundance of predators (lions, leopards, and hyenas), the abundance of other large mammals (buffalos and elephants), average daily temperature, rainfall, observed human activity, and the percentage of moon illumination on a given night affect the probability of observing chimpanzee nocturnal activity. Only three of these factors showed an effect on increased night activity: lower levels of human activity, more forest coverage of the site, and higher day temperatures – as we’ve seen at the Chimp&See site “Dry Lake” during the dry season.
As data was collected exclusively via camera trap videos, the authors speculate that these initial data might underestimate the amount of nocturnal activity. When more camera trap videos become available in the future – including at Chimp&See – they hope to find more evidence for nocturnal behaviors and its relevance for conservation and also human evolution.
This study demonstrates the unique advantage of using camera traps to find and investigate new and rare behaviors in chimpanzees and other animals, here especially those occurring at night. While it is possible to watch chimpanzees by staying at the nesting site all night, this can only be done at one of the few sites with habituated chimpanzees and a dedicated nocturnal field team. Moreover, the huge collaborative effort of the PanAf program provides the first opportunity to compare sites, environmental factors, and different populations to learn more about the evolutionary drivers of chimpanzee behavior.
If you want to join Chimp&See helping us to find more exciting chimpanzee videos and, for instance, contribute to the leopard mini-project please visit www.chimpandsee.org!
Chimpanzees are rarely active at night after building their nests. So, it was a surprise for me and other volunteers at Chimp&See to see them on our camera trap videos at almost all sites at least occasionally walking in the darkness. We decided to tag and collect those videos. While only a tiny fraction of videos at Chimp&See show what we call the “nightchimps”, it is an interesting phenomenon and leads to questions about what general or site-specific environmental circumstances might cause more or less nocturnal activities.
After starting and curating the Chimp&See “nightchimps” collection, we got the chance to join the project to get a different perspective on the science part and support the science team beyond our regular Chimp&See moderators’ tasks.
Using the nighttime video clips identified and tagged by our volunteers and video material from other PanAf research sites, as well as associated data from environmental surveys of these sites, this study provides a first comprehensive analysis of nocturnal chimpanzee activity in the wild spanning their range and all four subspecies. The study shows that chimpanzees indeed are active at night on the terrestrial camera trap videos at almost all sites (18 out of 22 in the study), but only infrequently, making it a rare behavior still. From all observed chimpanzee activity in the videos only 1.8% occurred at night, but this amount differed from site to site considerably, from 0 videos to more than 8% of all observed chimpanzee activity at one site. The video material shows chimpanzees mostly traveling during these times, but also some social activities and feeding.
The researchers then tested whether different environmental factors like percentage of mature forest at a given site, the abundance of predators (lions, leopards, and hyenas), the abundance of other large mammals (buffalos and elephants), average daily temperature, rainfall, observed human activity, and the percentage of moon illumination on a given night affect the probability of observing chimpanzee nocturnal activity. Only three of these factors showed an effect on increased night activity: lower levels of human activity, more forest coverage of the site, and higher day temperatures – as we’ve seen at the Chimp&See site “Dry Lake” during the dry season.
As data was collected exclusively via camera trap videos, the authors speculate that these initial data might underestimate the amount of nocturnal activity. When more camera trap videos become available in the future – including at Chimp&See – they hope to find more evidence for nocturnal behaviors and its relevance for conservation and also human evolution.
This study demonstrates the unique advantage of using camera traps to find and investigate new and rare behaviors in chimpanzees and other animals, here especially those occurring at night. While it is possible to watch chimpanzees by staying at the nesting site all night, this can only be done at one of the few sites with habituated chimpanzees and a dedicated nocturnal field team. Moreover, the huge collaborative effort of the PanAf program provides the first opportunity to compare sites, environmental factors, and different populations to learn more about the evolutionary drivers of chimpanzee behavior.
- Watch the Chimp&See “nightchimps” collection here.
- More information about the Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee and its mission.
- Original publication: Tagg, N. et al. “Nocturnal activity in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Evidence for flexible sleeping patterns and insights into human evolution” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 166(3), 510-529.
If you want to join Chimp&See helping us to find more exciting chimpanzee videos and, for instance, contribute to the leopard mini-project please visit www.chimpandsee.org!
Monday, April 23, 2018
Chimp&See's 3rd Anniversary Best Chimp Clips (So Far!)
To celebrate Chimp&See's 3rd Anniversary our sci mod and PanAf scientist Dr. Maureen McCarthy compiled some of the best chimp clips from Chimp&See so far!
If you want to discover more amazing videos from equatorial Africa visit chimpandsee.org !
If you want to discover more amazing videos from equatorial Africa visit chimpandsee.org !
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Chimp&See’s 3rd anniversary: Meet the neighbors of the “Ngogo chimps”
Chimp&See started three years ago on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2015. It’s our anniversary and like every year, we want to celebrate with some background information and a big THANK YOU to now almost 10,000 volunteers!
In the last three years, the project featured camera trap footage from 13 different research sites in three regions of the entire chimpanzee distribution, namely in Western, Central, and Eastern Africa. Missing until now is only Region B that is home of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee subspecies (Pan troglodytes ellioti) and will be up on Chimp&See very soon! All temporary research sites are set up to study chimp communities that no researcher has studied (not even seen!) before or in collaboration with established long-term research sites. In the first case, an initial search for chimpanzee signs (e.g., nests, tools, vocalizations) is performed and when chimps are present, the cameras are set up and run for at least 12 months. In the case of a collaborative site, the infrastructure and local knowledge of the long-term project is used, but the field team aims for an unhabituated chimp community nearby.
At Chimp&See the research sites are then getting pseudonames, e.g., “Dry Lake”, to protect the animals, but also current and future researchers, from a potential interest of poachers and other dangers. The sites usually can only be identified to the region in the maps that display after each classification.
For this anniversary, we want for once break the rules and tell you exactly where we are. “Green Snowflake” is a collaborative research site in Kibale National Park in southwestern Uganda. Here the Pan-African program worked together with the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. to study a neighboring community to their main study group that is with more than 200 individual members the biggest known wild chimpanzee community.
The cameras had been installed in what was thought clearly outside their territory, but as it happened, the Ngogo chimps used a part of the study site, too. In addition, chimps routinely patrol the borders of their territory and venture outside when circumstances (that means here foremost: strength in numbers) allow. So unexpectedly, but luckily, we could get a glimpse at some Ngogo chimps when a big group of males, followed by field assistants, crossed in front of the cameras. Those, who are familiar with the Ngogo chimps, might even be able to identify some of them. This territorial aspect, the boundary patrols, and a partly violent path to enlarge their own territory – as well as several memorable individual Ngogo chimps – are also highlighted in last year’s documentary “Rise of the Warrior Apes” (Discovery Channel). If you get the opportunity, you should check it out!
But the majority of the Green Snowflake chimp videos show an unhabituated neighbor community of Ngogo – and it doesn’t mean that they are at the lower end of this territorial struggle! In fact, most chimp videos here show rather idyllic groupings for feeding, travelling, or play. What “our” community shares with the Ngogo chimps is a rather favorable environment of old and new forest mostly undisturbed by human activity (like logging). Although, we’ve seen them largely feeding on wood or clay as the cameras are terrestrial, the area has many mature fruiting trees and the chimps here also have an appetite for meat and hunt monkeys, with a preference for the cute red colobus monkeys. They also share, unfortunately, the dangers of snare injuries as we’ve seen in several individuals here.
If you’ve already seen Green Snowflake videos, you probably encountered the field team maintaining the cameras. Samuel Angedakin, was the PanAf field site manager responsible for setting up the “data collection zone” according to their field protocol. This included not only installing the camera traps for taking video footage (as seen now at Chimp&See), but also collecting other data and samples (plants and other environmental organic materials) to inform about ecological factors, as well as feces and hair samples for genetic analyses of chimp demographics. Sam is currently the field manager at the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. and will start his PhD at Makerere University in Uganda in fall this year.
So, if you want to watch “Ngogo’s Neighbors” at Green Snowflake and help us classify camtrap videos, come over to Chimp&See and check out the great chimp videos, already identified individuals, and all the other animals in the North of Kibale National Park, Uganda.
Many thanks to Carolyn Rowney and Kevin Langergraber, as well as Sam Angedakin, from the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. for their great collaboration. And as always, a million thanks to all volunteers for getting involved in video annotation and chimp matching as well as always asking great questions!
In the last three years, the project featured camera trap footage from 13 different research sites in three regions of the entire chimpanzee distribution, namely in Western, Central, and Eastern Africa. Missing until now is only Region B that is home of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee subspecies (Pan troglodytes ellioti) and will be up on Chimp&See very soon! All temporary research sites are set up to study chimp communities that no researcher has studied (not even seen!) before or in collaboration with established long-term research sites. In the first case, an initial search for chimpanzee signs (e.g., nests, tools, vocalizations) is performed and when chimps are present, the cameras are set up and run for at least 12 months. In the case of a collaborative site, the infrastructure and local knowledge of the long-term project is used, but the field team aims for an unhabituated chimp community nearby.
At Chimp&See the research sites are then getting pseudonames, e.g., “Dry Lake”, to protect the animals, but also current and future researchers, from a potential interest of poachers and other dangers. The sites usually can only be identified to the region in the maps that display after each classification.
For this anniversary, we want for once break the rules and tell you exactly where we are. “Green Snowflake” is a collaborative research site in Kibale National Park in southwestern Uganda. Here the Pan-African program worked together with the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. to study a neighboring community to their main study group that is with more than 200 individual members the biggest known wild chimpanzee community.
The cameras had been installed in what was thought clearly outside their territory, but as it happened, the Ngogo chimps used a part of the study site, too. In addition, chimps routinely patrol the borders of their territory and venture outside when circumstances (that means here foremost: strength in numbers) allow. So unexpectedly, but luckily, we could get a glimpse at some Ngogo chimps when a big group of males, followed by field assistants, crossed in front of the cameras. Those, who are familiar with the Ngogo chimps, might even be able to identify some of them. This territorial aspect, the boundary patrols, and a partly violent path to enlarge their own territory – as well as several memorable individual Ngogo chimps – are also highlighted in last year’s documentary “Rise of the Warrior Apes” (Discovery Channel). If you get the opportunity, you should check it out!
But the majority of the Green Snowflake chimp videos show an unhabituated neighbor community of Ngogo – and it doesn’t mean that they are at the lower end of this territorial struggle! In fact, most chimp videos here show rather idyllic groupings for feeding, travelling, or play. What “our” community shares with the Ngogo chimps is a rather favorable environment of old and new forest mostly undisturbed by human activity (like logging). Although, we’ve seen them largely feeding on wood or clay as the cameras are terrestrial, the area has many mature fruiting trees and the chimps here also have an appetite for meat and hunt monkeys, with a preference for the cute red colobus monkeys. They also share, unfortunately, the dangers of snare injuries as we’ve seen in several individuals here.
If you’ve already seen Green Snowflake videos, you probably encountered the field team maintaining the cameras. Samuel Angedakin, was the PanAf field site manager responsible for setting up the “data collection zone” according to their field protocol. This included not only installing the camera traps for taking video footage (as seen now at Chimp&See), but also collecting other data and samples (plants and other environmental organic materials) to inform about ecological factors, as well as feces and hair samples for genetic analyses of chimp demographics. Sam is currently the field manager at the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. and will start his PhD at Makerere University in Uganda in fall this year.
 |
| Sam Angedakin, the PanAf field site manager for "Green Snowflake" |
So, if you want to watch “Ngogo’s Neighbors” at Green Snowflake and help us classify camtrap videos, come over to Chimp&See and check out the great chimp videos, already identified individuals, and all the other animals in the North of Kibale National Park, Uganda.
Many thanks to Carolyn Rowney and Kevin Langergraber, as well as Sam Angedakin, from the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project Inc. for their great collaboration. And as always, a million thanks to all volunteers for getting involved in video annotation and chimp matching as well as always asking great questions!
 |
| Bohr, Cassini, and Titan from Green Snowflake wish you a happy Earth Day 2018! |
Thursday, March 1, 2018
3.5 million classifications; 9,800 volunteers; 2,200 hours of video footage annotated!
Chimp&See reached yet another milestone: together, we made 3.5 million classifications and annotated with this more than 500,000 video clips! This huge effort helped the science team to get to date through 2,200 hours of footage – annotate all animals and behaviors seen in a video clip, tag to the species level, and identify almost 300 unique chimpanzees (and some leopards) across all sites.
We already completed 13 research sites and are more than halfway through the current one “Green Snowflake” that already by now topped all other sites in the number of chimpanzee videos found. Matching the chimps is an ongoing challenge, but we already identified several members of this community and could watch it grow as there are at least three newborn infants clinging to their mothers’ belly virtually from one month to the other.
At this beautiful Eastern African site, we could see two new (to us) behaviors as the chimps and other species spend extended periods eating decaying mineral-rich wood and also clay or soil. You can have lots of fun watching bigger groups of monkeys and chimps interacting with each other and competing for the best place to feed. Their huge enthusiasm for “wood eating” can be seen in watching the “feeding tree” practically disappear in just months.
Thank you for the continuous support of the project and your enthusiasm about chimps and African wildlife in general. Come over to Chimp&See and help us classify even more videos!
We already completed 13 research sites and are more than halfway through the current one “Green Snowflake” that already by now topped all other sites in the number of chimpanzee videos found. Matching the chimps is an ongoing challenge, but we already identified several members of this community and could watch it grow as there are at least three newborn infants clinging to their mothers’ belly virtually from one month to the other.
At this beautiful Eastern African site, we could see two new (to us) behaviors as the chimps and other species spend extended periods eating decaying mineral-rich wood and also clay or soil. You can have lots of fun watching bigger groups of monkeys and chimps interacting with each other and competing for the best place to feed. Their huge enthusiasm for “wood eating” can be seen in watching the “feeding tree” practically disappear in just months.
 |
| The same tree getting dismantled on camera in just months. |
Thank you for the continuous support of the project and your enthusiasm about chimps and African wildlife in general. Come over to Chimp&See and help us classify even more videos!
Monday, October 2, 2017
Animal Selfies update October 2017!
Originally posted on Talk by Ammie Kalan:
--
Hi everyone!
I’d like to take a moment to update you about the animal selfies project.
First of all, I want to thank you all for assisting me with this project by finding and tagging all camera reactions. It is a tremendous help to not only annotate the camera reactions in the classification step, but also tagging them here on Talk to allow discussions about the videos and to build tag group collections. Volunteers have already tagged almost 200 elephant camera reactions from all sites, 42 camera reactions of gorillas, more than 800 camera reactions from chimps, and many more curious baboons. This is amazing!!! We now have a solid and ever growing database for looking at how wild animals respond to camera-traps.
As new volunteers are joining the project all the time and others might have forgotten, I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone on the purpose of this project and how you can help. I am looking into the camera reactions of chimps and gorillas (foremost) and of baboons and elephants (secondarily). I am investigating behavioral differences towards the cameras on the individual level and across different communities and sites, as well as species. The baboon and elephant data will be coded and analyzed in a second step since it is necessary to identify elephants and baboons individually (or at least to the group level) as we do it here at Chimp&See with chimps and gorillas. At the moment, this is not possible – so the apes have priority – but this will hopefully be accomplished later. Therefore, tags and videos from more sites here at Chimp&See with those four species can always be incorporated in future studies.
I am specifically asking for your help to tag all camera reactions of these species (chimps, gorillas, baboons, and elephants) with #camera_reaction or #selfie, and to add #camtouch, if the camera is touched. An important step in this process is to also make sure that the species #chimp, #gorilla, #baboon, #elephant, and the site name, e.g., #GreenSnowflake, is tagged too.
Thank you again for all your help! If you have any questions, please ask them here!
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Halloween Countdown Day 1: Update on our spooktacular camera reactions project!
Hi everyone! To kick off this year’s Chimp&See Halloween countdown, , we’ve put together some highlights of the near 'frightened' #camera_reactions we've observed so far thanks to your participation in the animal selfies project!
Usually the animals are more cautious or curious about the camera traps (when they notice them at all) but we have seen some startled chimpanzees (ACP00083cu, ACP00083vi), baby elephants (ACP00022hm, ACP000bgq8), and even a beautiful sooty mangabey seeming a bit surprised by the camera (ACP000fca6)! Here’s also a very spooky night video of a cautious bushpig wary of the camera, and listen carefully for the alarm grunt (ACP000bjlc).
Of course we never intend to scare wild animals when using camera-traps, and in fact we take extra care to camouflage the devices and use settings that will not startle the animals which is why 'surprised' and 'frightened' responses should be rare. For some of these exact reasons, the PANAF uses Bushnell Trophy Cameras with an infrared sensor that produces minimal light when triggered by an animal's movement. The Bushnell Trophy Cameras are also quiet, small, lightweight, and therefore easy to install in wild landscapes from the forest to the savannas.
The camera traps are also given some extra protection and camouflage, particularly from those elephants who can do some serious damage! The camera-traps are placed inside a small tupperware container, sealed tight, and painted dark green (and sometimes they even get an extra metal box of protection too) This further prevents reflections from the camera lens occurring which reduces the likelihood that the camera surprises an animal. Of course we know that animals, especially primates, are exceptionally curious and therefore all the above precautions do not prevent regular #camtouch, #selfies, and #camera_reactions, from occurring. Please keep tagging videos where you observe chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons, and elephants detecting (I.e #camera_reaction), playing or inspecting (e.g. #camtouch) the camera-traps as this will help us to gain a better understanding of what factors in the habitat and species-specific behaviour increases camera-trap interaction by individuals. Of course hashtagging other species' camera reactions is also welcome but we are concentrating on these animals first.
Usually the animals are more cautious or curious about the camera traps (when they notice them at all) but we have seen some startled chimpanzees (ACP00083cu, ACP00083vi), baby elephants (ACP00022hm, ACP000bgq8), and even a beautiful sooty mangabey seeming a bit surprised by the camera (ACP000fca6)! Here’s also a very spooky night video of a cautious bushpig wary of the camera, and listen carefully for the alarm grunt (ACP000bjlc).
Of course we never intend to scare wild animals when using camera-traps, and in fact we take extra care to camouflage the devices and use settings that will not startle the animals which is why 'surprised' and 'frightened' responses should be rare. For some of these exact reasons, the PANAF uses Bushnell Trophy Cameras with an infrared sensor that produces minimal light when triggered by an animal's movement. The Bushnell Trophy Cameras are also quiet, small, lightweight, and therefore easy to install in wild landscapes from the forest to the savannas.
The camera traps are also given some extra protection and camouflage, particularly from those elephants who can do some serious damage! The camera-traps are placed inside a small tupperware container, sealed tight, and painted dark green (and sometimes they even get an extra metal box of protection too) This further prevents reflections from the camera lens occurring which reduces the likelihood that the camera surprises an animal. Of course we know that animals, especially primates, are exceptionally curious and therefore all the above precautions do not prevent regular #camtouch, #selfies, and #camera_reactions, from occurring. Please keep tagging videos where you observe chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons, and elephants detecting (I.e #camera_reaction), playing or inspecting (e.g. #camtouch) the camera-traps as this will help us to gain a better understanding of what factors in the habitat and species-specific behaviour increases camera-trap interaction by individuals. Of course hashtagging other species' camera reactions is also welcome but we are concentrating on these animals first.
Thanks to the efforts of our citizen scientists and dedicated chimpandsee moderators, we now have a staggering 500+ clips of #baboon #camera_reactions and we are just shy of 500 #chimp #camera_reactions. Gorillas are also observed to react to cameras with 40 videos so far of #gorilla #camera_reaction and 125 #elephant #camera_reactions. With your continued help we look forward to discovering many more interesting, funny, and surprising reactions to the camera traps, especially as new videos are uploaded to the site. Happy Halloween :)
-the science team
Monday, January 18, 2016
Field Update: Camera Traps in Gabon
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| Rolland and Ivonne surverying their TRS in Gabon |
Our first field update is from Ivonne Kienast from the Batéké Plateau in Gabon where she and Bo Larson are working as temporary research site (TRS) managers for the MPI-EVA Pan African Programme: The Cultured Chimpanzee's collaborative research site with the Aspinall Foundation and l'Agence Nationale Des Parcs Nationaux Du Gabon.
Ivonne writes:
You know it is going to be a specially exciting day. You can feel the tickling in your fingers, the impatience makes you walk faster, and you just want to arrive to the spots you know so well. It's camera trap day ! Meaning... that you are coming back to camp with SD cards full of amazing footage. You know you will have videos of elephants, duikers, leopards, red river hogs, hopefully pangolins, aardvaarks and golden cats. You cross your fingers for a lion video and of course and number 1 in the charts: Chimps ! You are excited to find out if the female with her fluffy baby you saw the other day in the forest will have passed by one of the cameras, or if you are going to see again on a video those 3 amazing huge males sitting in front of the camera studying it carefully. Or maybe the young male you called Tango pushing the camera and throwing a stick at it.
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| C&S citizen scientists you can look forward to the video this camera caught ;) |
Like every month you arrive excited to the camera. And you know something went wrong, because the camera is not there. It is lying on the ground, ripped in peaces, smashed and crashed. You could give it so many definitions ! And it is also how you feel in that moment. You look at the pieces, shaking your head, feeling frustrated. Resigned you check if you can save the SD card. You think: “Even if you loose the device, please don't loose the data.” Then you start searching for all the pieces of the plastic box, of the camera and all components which were used for the setup. In 13 months it have been 11 cameras, the last 8 ones in the last 3 months ! Elephants are reacting extremely aggressively towards the cameras. You cannot blame them. It's their forest. Your cameras scare them, or they just might have a bad day and decide to make your work a bit more difficult. As you always look at the bright side of life :P, you think: “Ok, better the cameras and not us. Or the cameras AND us”.
Well, thanks to our partner and host PPG (Projet Protection des Gorilles – The Aspinall Foundation), we found a perfect solution. PPG has been working with camera traps for gorilla monitoring for a while, and because gorillas are very touchy and curious apes, they needed to protect their cameras very well. So they designed a metallic box, which is fixed to the trees with wire, and the camera is just placed into this box. The setup is pretty stable. But PPG was having big problems with the humidity, and every month they were taking out cameras which were not working properly.
We did not have problems with the humidity, as our cameras are protected by a plastic box, covered with cling film, and having silica gel in the interior to absorbe humidity. PPG was clever ;). They decided to put their cameras in plastic boxes, covered with cling film, silica gel in the interior and all together in the metallic box. What a great idea ! So, we decided to do the same. We got 15 custom made metallic boxes and we have all our hopes on them. Unification of two different systems used at one site will allow us to get lots of amazing videos without loosing our cameras. For elephants it won't be impossible, but more difficult to destroy the new setup. We hope that out of 10 we might save 9. And we have high chances this will work ! Thanks PPG for this great idea.
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