Update on the leopard mini-project

In July, Chimp&See re-launched the new project interface at Zooniverse with an upgrade of new workflows and remodeled discussion forums that facilitate exchange of the volunteers with the science team and among each other. At the same time, we re-launched the leopard mini-project that aims to assess the density of this important chimpanzee predator at all PanAf sites by identifying individual leopards.

The new interface enables us to have a dedicated discussion board for leopard videos and discuss questions related to leopards and other predators. Here the volunteers can post leopard videos they found during classification and discuss individual match proposals. Every video will be tagged by the volunteers with #leopard and the site name. We also ask for behavioral tags (like #marking, #resting, or #hunting), the sex, if seen, and to tag which sides of the body are visible in the video (front, back, left, or right). For discussing individual leopards in match proposals, it is important to compare the same side of the body for assessing the identity of the highly individually-specific pattern of spots and rosettes for any given leopard.

An example of a rather difficult perspective for identifying this gorgeous
leopard as the pattern is highly distorted. Original video here. 

In the first months of identifying leopards, we discovered that often for us the best perspective on the leopards from the Chimp&See video footage is the back view, when a leopard is walking away from the camera. The side views that many scientists use are, of course, even better, but rarely displayed in our footage and often distorted (see image above). Many cameras are set up facing animal trails, so when the leopard is walking slowly, we have the best chance to get a good look on the pattern found on the hind limbs and a reasonable number of images to confirm their identity. You can see here an example from “Tau”, a named male from the Quiet Wood site.

The images are stills from two videos captured on two separate days and different locations. Find more videos of Tau here.

The leopard video list and any information about the individuals seen are stored in the new open leopard spreadsheet. This spreadsheet, which we hope to automate partly in the future, replaces the old static known and prospective list for leopards. A storage solution for images of the identifying fur pattern will be added soon. The currently running Xenon Bloom site in West Africa already features beautiful leopards and we hope to name the first individual soon. You should ge involved.

If you want to discuss leopards and see how we identify individuals, please come over to Chimp&See, help us classify videos, and discuss with us!

Chimp&See will soon be paused till 2019 but chimp matching will still continue on Talk!

Hi everyone!

We have been revamping the chimp&see site to move to the new Zooniverse platform and make a lot of improvements along the way

We are working on making some of the workflows more fun, easier and more tailored to what people like to do :) and best of all, we'll be adding versions of the site in more languages!

While we go through this process we've decided to pause videos going up on chimpandsee.org [after this current set is done] but there will still be lots of discussions going on, on talk.chimpandsee.org to do chimp matching and chimp naming! Our amazing mods have been incredible in committing to finishing up all the pending chimpIDs so we can move forward with a clean slate and no more back log!

We will need your opinions on chimp matching and look forward to having you around Talk during the main platform pause!

New to chimp matching? check out this awesome how to video and then get started here: https://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP0000007/discussions/DCP00002pu

and check out this amazing chimp identification guide and quiz from BBCOne:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1XYlD34lc2hhVtgK2rWZnNc/chimp-id-guide

and if chimp matching isn't your thing - we hope to see you back in January for a big new set of videos to annotate!

Thank you so much for your contribution so far and looking forward to working together with you in the future!

Pant hoots to you all!

~The PanAf and ChimpandSee team

New Chimp Matching Video Tutorial

As you know, the Chimp and See project includes several different activities: classifying all video clips, tagging of specific species and behaviors, and matching of individual chimps (and in the last year, leopards).  One of the comments we often hear from our newer volunteers is that they have trouble telling one chimp from another.  It does take practice, but to help speed up the learning process, the moderator team at Chimp and See would like to announce a new video tutorial!

In, "How to Recognize Chimpanzee Faces," you'll learn a step-by-step technique that shows you what to look for and how to compare individuals to find a match.  It's loosely based on a concept used by sketch artists and facial recognition software, and is simple enough for anyone to follow and put to use.  We'd love to have more of you join us in chimp matching, so if you don't have the hang of it yet, or have been hesitant to try, take a look at the new tutorial:

(14 mins., English)

When you're ready, you can practice what you've learned with the chimps on our newest site, Green Snowflake!  See you there!

#MatchMaking: Talib edition

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match!

Welcome to another edition of chimp matching 🐵

One of the goals at Chimp&See is to take videos that have been found containing chimpanzees and identify individual animals.  To do this, we compare videos and attempt to “match” animals that have identical physical features.  Anyone is allowed to propose a match, but multiple people must be in agreement before a potential match is confirmed by a site scientist.

This week’s featured potential match is from Restless Star.  Here we have an identified chimp named Talib:

And then we have two other individuals.  These two appear to be a match to each other (hence the temporary IDs of RSMale09 and RSMale09b), although it has not been confirmed:

Side-by-side courtesy of @NuriaM

Compare the above images. Consider things like overall body size and shape, head shape and facial features, as well as balding patterns, scars and deformities (if any exist).  So, what do you think? Is GSMale09 a match to Talib?  What about GSMale09b? Is it the same individual in each image?  Why do you think so?  What characteristics make you think they do or do not match?

Bring your comments over to the discussion at Chimp&See Talk.  There are more images and videos available on Talk for those wanting a better look.  You can also comment below.  The more feedback received, the more confident we can be in our determination, match or no match, so come tell us what you think!

#MatchMaking: Male at Aged Volet

This week we like to get your opinion about a handsome male. And it's easy as a-b-c - literally!

He is a fully grown-up adult with mostly black hair. His eyebrows are rather straigt, the mask around the eyes is black and the muzzle slightly brighter. The ears stick out a little. There might be some baldness on his forehead but we don't know exactly the shape and size of it due to the lighting conditions.

Have a closer look at him in the videos on Chimp & See: clip 1   clip2

In our discussion on talk we already ruled out the proposed match to Caruso. Now we have two possibilities left. The first one is Magnus and the second one is Baron. On purpose we don't give either of their descriptions here to not bias you. We'd like you to come up with your own opinion. The next two collages show the two males:

Here's our question: Do you think the male above is 

a) Magnus
b) Baron, or
c) none of the two

Have you decided yet? Then please head over to the ongoing discussion on talk and tell us what you think. You can also just leave the respective letter a, b or c, if you prefer. We very much appreciate your participation!

Thank you and see you at Chimp & See where the brandnew site "Green Snowflake" is up and running!