New MonkeySee (part 2): Monkeys and prosimians at Xenon Bloom

In part 1 of this series, we introduced the new MonkeySee workflow. Here in part 2, we visit the first live MonkeySee workflow for the Xenon Bloom site, a mixed savannah and woodland habitat in West Africa. Let’s have a look at the monkey and prosimian species you can watch and learn about at Xenon Bloom. 

Category: Baboons

Guinea baboons (Papio papio) are the enthusiastic stars of the Xenon Bloom show. They are often seen in bigger troops and have a rich repertoire of social behaviors and vocalizations. Just go to Chimp&See and check out some special greeting rituals and other interesting aspects of their social life. We were very excited to see “play swimming” of juveniles as most primates are known to avoid getting wet.

Guinea baboons have thick, light reddish- to greenish-brown fur. Their faces are hairless, with purplish-black skin and the squared, a bit dog-like muzzle that is typical of baboons. Their rumps are bare and pinkish in color. Males have a mane, though sometimes subtle. Females can display bright pink swelling. The newborn infants have a considerably darker color than adults.
The Xenon Bloom site is situated where the geographic ranges of Guinea and olive baboons meet. Until now, we did only see Guinea baboons, but might encounter here olive baboons, too.

Category: Chlorocebus

The Green monkey (Chlorocebus sabaeus) is a medium-sized and semi-terrestrial monkey with light golden fur on the head, back and tail, and lighter gray or white fur on the chest and legs. The face and ears are dark, though lighter in younger individuals

Category: Colobus

We did not actually expect to see colobus monkeys in this rather open habitat. But surprisingly, there has been a King colobus in several videos already. The King colobus (Colobus ploykomos) is a species of Western black-and-white colobus. It has a black coat of rather long fur, especially on the back. The face is black, with a halo of short white fur around it that extends down the throat and chest, and the on the shoulders. The long tail is all white.

The surprise guest - a King colobus - in the back and a female Guinea baboon in the foreground

Category: Patas Monkey

The Patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas) is my personal favorite. Patas monkeys occupy exclusively the savannah grass- and interspersed woodlands. They almost never venture into closed forest habitat. It is the fastest-running primate and normally seen on the ground.

Patas monkeys are bright reddish-brown from the top of their head down the back of their body and their long slender tail. The face, chest and legs are a light to medium gray. They usually have a distinctive black line of fur at the brow line that may extend to the ears on either side. Males are much larger, with more dramatic coloration and a mane.

Category: Prosimians

Prosimians are not monkeys, but belong to a more primitive group of primates, along with lemurs. We use this new category for the nocturnal galagos and pottos

Galago

Galagos (genus Otolemur),  also called bushbabies are very small nocturnal primates. As many animals active at night, they have large eyes that glow in our infrared night footage. They have round ears and a rather bushy, long tail. They can be seen climbing, but are actually some formidable jumpers.

Potto (Perodicticus potto) 

The potto is another type of prosimian, nocturnal like the galago, but larger. It has a short tail, thick fur, large round eyes and lobster-claw like hands that it uses to grasp branches. It climbs slowly through the tree canopy, rather than jumping, and is rarely, if ever, on the ground. It will be a surprise when we actually see a potto at Xenon Bloom.

Xenon Bloom's MonkeySee classification interface lists some other species that might be seen here, but still haven't. Watch out for sooty mangabeys, red colobus, or Campbell's mona monkeys as well.

The primate descriptions in this post are based on the comprehensive Monkey Guide created by Chimp&See citsci moderator Kristeena Sigler.

Check out MonkeySee at Chimp&See and enjoy amazing primate clips from this beautiful West African landscape!

New MonkeySee (part 1): What is new and how does it work

In September, we opened the new MonkeySee workflow for the monkey aficionados among you. This workflow presents volunteers exclusively with videos of monkeys and prosimians during classification to determine the exact species. These videos have already been pre-sorted in the Species ID workflow and at least four people said that one or more monkeys or prosimians are seen. The video is then moved to the MonkeySee workflow for further specification. This two-step classification process allows Chimp&See to annotate videos faster and in more detail at the same time.

The process is faster, because the science team knows already after four (unanimous) classifications that monkeys or prosimians are present. And after only four more annotations in MonkeySee (again provided the volunteers agree on the species), the videos are retired with all individual species labels applied. In addition, videos with more than one primate species can be easily identified with the new workflow. This wasn’t possible before.

Here is how it works

MonkeySee presents the volunteers first with a video and broader categories of primate groups, like baboon, chlorocebus, or prosimian, as well as an absence category. The volunteer chooses then between single species options in the next step. The species choices include all species that are known to be at this site and species that haven’t been confirmed there yet, but those ranges are close. So, there is a reasonable chance to actually see them at the site we're working on and confirm (or add to) known species ranges.

A detailed tutorial helps with species identification.

If you want to try out MonkeySee, go to Chimp&See and choose the MonkeySee workflow under the Welcome banner. The current site Xenon Bloom with its mixed grass- and woodland habitat features some unique savannah primates, for instance the highly entertaining Guinea baboons.

Enjoy! Be a Citizen Scientist and help us annotate African wildlife videos at Chimp&See.

Happy International Primate Day! To celebrate come and check-out our Xenon Bloom MonkeySee workflow

Happy International Primate Day! To celebrate come and check-out our new Xenon Bloom MonkeySee workflow.

In addition to the two usual species ID workflows, each site will also have its own primate-specific workflow called MonkeySee.

Right now at MonkeySee you can learn about Xenon Bloom primates and identify them to the species level. Not sure how to tell monkeys apart? Don't worry! There is a handy tutorial to help you learn.

 You can find the link to MonkeySee under the main picture at chimpandsee.org:

Hope to see you at ChimpandSee (and MonkeySee!) soon :)


*MonkeySee includes other non-monkey primates like galagoes (bushbabies) and pottos

“MonkeySee” – primate mini-project: A big thank you and a little sneak preview

Although Chimp&See has its main focus on chimpanzees, other species, especially other primates, play an important ecological role in the African rainforest and their presence can be an indicator of biodiversity and potential disturbances at a site. The current Chimp&See annotation interface only supports the classification of monkeys in the broad category “other primates”. From site to site many different species of monkeys and even other primates like galagos and pottos are summarized here. These classification data do not allow differentiating species or giving any indication about the occurence of rarely seen species, like the endangered Western red colobus.

Early on in Chimp&See, we asked all volunteers to tag all species they can identify to the species level to improve the information that we get from the classification stage. We thank all volunteers who took this time over the years and engaged in ID discussions with the moderators and the science team for some rather difficult cases!

In addition, we used the current hiatus on Chimp&See to gather some very (very!) dedicated volunteers to finish tagging all primate videos and check hashtags and comments. As approximately 50% of our clips have been tagged during the site classifications, this adds to several thousand video clips! A very special thanks to @Batfan, @Corcaroli, @HeikeW, @midnightsun and @Snorticus, as well as the moderators coordinating this mini-project.

From left to right: Western red colobus, sooty mangabey, blue monkey, and olive baboon

These data can now be used to study single species of interest, their behaviors like reactions of baboon to our camera traps in our “Animal Selfies” mini-project and even potential interactions with chimpanzees like scavenging of leftover nuts from chimpanzees nutcracking sites by sooty mangabeys.

And we have good news for all the primate fans among you! The science team decided to use the current relaunch of Chimp&See (in progress) on the Zooniverse Panoptes Project Builder to integrate a new workflow dedicated solely to monkeys and prosimians (galagos and pottos) into Chimp&See. This new workflow that aims to identify all primates to the species level already during classification, leaving room for tagging exemplary videos and interesting behaviors and thus saving time. Stay tuned for the new Chimp&See interface!

Again pant hoots and thanks to everybody engaged in this mini-project “MonkeySee”!

Halloween Countdown Day 7: Happy Halloween! 🎃

Happy Halloween Chimp&Seers!!

We hope you enjoyed this year's Halloween posts! Our final videos come full circle from where we started on Halloween Countdown Day 1! Based mostly on videos from the #camtouch tag group in the animal selfies project, we made a little clip collection we call "Chimp&See - Boo!". 

When you watch Chimp&See videos please help us with the video annotation by tagging appropriate videos with #camera_reaction #selfie and #camtouch as well as the species and site names (more details on how to participate HERE).

Have a very Happy Halloween everybody and when you're gorging on candy in the days to come, spend some of the sugary energy over at ChimpandSee.org! 

--
(original videos: ACP000emll, ACP000byws, ACP000bmg7, ACP000b6jg, ACP0007e75, ACP00083vi, ACP000c8hu, ACP000cc99, ACP000c8k2, ACP000bnby, ACP000emlm,ACP0002o89, ACP000c3dn, ACP000efpa, ACP000cdev, ACP000c8h8, ACP000esem, ACP000cdjy)

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.

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

Primate Locomotion

We all know that one thing that sets us apart from other primates is that as adults, the majority of our locomotion is upright on two legs.  The scientific term for this is "obligate bipedalism" -- obligate here meaning that our anatomy does not allow us to walk any other way, and bipedal meaning on two (bi) feet (ped).  We may be special in walking upright, but that definitely doesn't mean that all other primates move about in the same way!  Let's take a look at how some of the other primates we've seen on Chimp & See get around.  For each species below, we'll look at their most common form of locomotion.

Starting with the primates most distantly related to us, we have galagos and pottos.  These are both small, nocturnal, arboreal, solitary primates, but they have surprisingly different modes of locomotion.  Pottos generally move by climbing slowly and deliberately, using their arms and legs about equally.  Most galagos (though it differs somewhat by species) are great leapers, sometimes traveling more than 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) in one jump!  They get most of their power from strong legs, which are much longer than their arms.  Since they're a bit hard to see in the black and white videos, here are a couple pictures to help familiarize you with these primates.

 

 Potto photo credit: Josh More                                                Galago photo credit: Wegmann

This video shows a clip of a slow-moving potto, then a couple leaping galagos.

Original clips: ACP00058om, ACP000cb2b

Before we look at the next clips, a very quick side lesson in skeletal anatomy.  When humans walk, they contact the ground with the heel bone: the calcaneus, shown in yellow in the image on the left below.  Some animals, like your dog or cat, only contact the ground with the bones that make up the toes.  Their heel bone, shown again in yellow in the wolf skeleton on the right, remains off the ground throughout their stride.

 

Human foot image credit: DBCLS                                                                                   Wolf image credit: Royal Natural History Volume 1


That sets the stage for the the African monkeys.  We have seen over a dozen different species of monkey, but we mostly see them using one of two subtly different types of terrestrial locomotion.  The first is called palmigrade quadrupedalism -- palmigrade meaning that they place the whole palm on the ground as they walk, and quadrupedal meaning on four (quad) feet (ped).  This is equivalent to the way humans place their whole foot on the ground.  The other type of locomotion we see in African monkeys on Chimp & See is called digitigrade quadrupedalism, where digitigrade means on the fingers/toes (digits).  This is equivalent to the way your dog or cat would walk, without touching the heel bone to the ground and instead supporting the weight on the fingers/toes.  At first glance, both of these types of locomotion look quite similar in C&S clips, but when you look closely, you can see how the wrist/ankle are in different positions, either contacting the ground, or held above it.

The first clip in this video is a green monkey walking palmigrade.  With each step, the whole hand and foot contact the ground.  The second clip shows a patas monkey walking digitigrade.  Like your cat or dog, the palm and heel remain raised off the ground as the monkey walks.

Original clips: ACP0006fnm, ACP000638c

Last we have the chimps and gorillas.  As adults, both gorillas and chimps knuckle-walk for the majority of their locomotion, but there is some debate as to whether this evolved independently in each lineage, or just once in an ancestor.  Either way, they both curl their fingers under, contacting the ground with the knuckles.  This is actually a behavior that has to develop in infant chimps and gorillas.  When they take their first quadrupedal steps, they walk palmigrade, just like the green monkey in the previous video.  Gorillas make the switch to knuckle-walking earlier than chimps do: at 10 months of age about 70% of quadrupedalism is knuckle-walking in gorillas, while only about 20% is knuckle-walking in chimps.

This video shows two adult chimps knuckle-walking, followed by an infant chimp taking a few palmigrade steps.  Last, a handsome silverback gorilla knuckle-walks past the camera.

Original clips: ACP0004pfv, ACP0004pfx, ACP00078z2, ACP00078z3, ACP000bxr0

As you can see, we've been able to watch quite a variety of primates on Chimp & See, moving about in many different ways!  Join us and see if you can spot some of them yourself!


References:
Off, Eileen C., and Daniel L. Gebo. "Galago locomotion in Kibale National Park, Uganda." American journal of primatology 66.2 (2005): 189-195.
Butynski, Thomas M., and Yvonne A. de Jong. "Natural history of the Somali lesser galago (Galago gallarum)." Journal of East African Natural History 93.1 (2004): 23-38.
Schaefer, Melissa S., and Leanne T. Nash. "Limb growth in captive Galago senegalensis: getting in shape to be an adult." American journal of primatology 69.1 (2007): 104-112.
Gebo, Daniel L. "Locomotor diversity in prosimian primates." American Journal of Primatology 13.3 (1987): 271-281.
Patel, Biren A. "Functional morphology of cercopithecoid primate metacarpals." Journal of human evolution 58.4 (2010): 320-337.
Isbell, Lynne A., et al. "Locomotor activity differences between sympatric patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas) and vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops): implications for the evolution of long hindlimb length in Homo." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 105.2 (1998): 199-207.
Kivell, Tracy L., and Daniel Schmitt. "Independent evolution of knuckle-walking in African apes shows that humans did not evolve from a knuckle-walking ancestor." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106.34 (2009): 14241-14246.
Doran, D. M. "Ontogeny of locomotion in mountain gorillas and chimpanzees." Journal of Human Evolution 32.4 (1997): 323-344.

Savannah wildlife

Over time, Chimp & See features different research sites from West via Central to East Africa with diverse habitats and climates to study chimpanzee ecology and behavior. After several West and Central African forests habitats, the current site Dry Lake 11 is the first savannah habitat we worked on. The site and its wildlife presented some new (to us) species like warthogs, green and patas monkeys, crested porcupines, baboons, and for instance our first lions (unfortunately, only two sightings).

The landscape is very different from the dense forests we used to see at previous research sites. The space is more open with grassland and scattered groups of medium-height trees. The environment varies remarkably with distinct seasons. The site is generally drier and warmer with temperatures up to 45 °C in April (the warmest month of the year) and a rainy season peaking in August. With the cameras up at every research site for 12 to 18 months, we could follow the changing seasons very well. During the dry season, multiple species assembled at the subsequently drying out waterholes, warthogs sought relief from the heat in open “caves” and many animals used the cooler hours of the day for foraging and hunting. Wildfires often arise during this time. In July and August, heavy rainfall could be seen in many videos (sometimes very heavy rain will trigger the motion detector of the cameras without animals being present).

A guinea baboon at a waterhole late in the dry season.

A week earlier, this genet still found some water to drink.

Wildfire in a bamboo wood patch

A very welcome attraction of this research site – next to the chimpanzees – is the presence of guinea baboons. They never failed to entertain us – be it at assisting with camera adjustments  or feeding with the help of all four limbs.

Guinea baboons feeding on borassus (palm fruits), hands and feet engaged.

As baboons often travel, feed, and rest together in bigger groups, many social interactions could be observed. The greeting behavior found special interest. In addition to the more familiar hugs, touches, and vocal greetings between two individuals, (mostly) males greet each other with “diddling” (touching each other’s genitals) to assure an “amicable” social arrangement. Baboon infants are an attraction by themselves, not only to the citizen scientist observers, but also for other baboons. They are kind of “kidnapped” (here called “infant handling”) by other group members frequently and sometimes need to be retrieved by their mothers (mostly just from some cuddling).

As this one of the first research sites, SD (standard definition) cameras often with a creaky sound were mostly used here. These cameras with a lower resolution do not constitute a problem for many questions the science team is interested in like species and number of animals recorded, behavioral questions, and e.g., human pressure, but they gave us a hard time to identify and match the chimpanzees present since many features as cuts in ears, scars etc. disappeared in a cloud of coarse pixels. Most of the newer sites however use HD cameras exclusively so this should become less of a problem as newer sites are uploaded to Chimp & See.

Join us at Chimp & See to watch and annotate videos from across Africa!

Daily Zoo Triple Species: duiker mangabey and diana monkey

Was this triple species find the most surprising video of 2015 in your opinion? Cast your 

nominations in all our best of categories here:  http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000c/discussions/DCP0000lrf 

original video here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0004k4b

Daily Zoo - Baboon Selfie 2 - Nominate your favourite videos of 2015!!!

Is this your favourite Chimp&See video from 2015? If yes nominate it (and your other favourites) here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000c/discussions/DCP0000lrf  

#DailyZoo

Baboon Selfie

We're lucky to have such helpful baboons involved with camera adjustments at Dry Lake #selfie #dailyzoo

original video here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00073wk

Halloween countdown from Chimp&See!

For the next 10 days we'll been showcasing some of Chimp&See's spookiest videos on facebook and twitter filled with things that go bump in the night (and sometimes during the day too)! Check back here daily to see what makes our top 10 list!

10) Chimp&See's Spooky Rompo 
We started the countdown with this video from Crimson Dew that sets the tone perfectly and was found by modertaor jwidness. Its just an illusion created by a foggy and wet camera lens (or is it?!? muahhahahahahahah!) or perhaps the legendary Rompo?

original video can be found here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00052tm1


9) Spiders
We've got some great spider videos on Chimp&See, sometimes they can even be a bit distracting! Citzien scientist Boleyn commented that "because of the #spider I almost missed the #genet" on this video from Muddy frost: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0003qe1 

Also, we suspect that these floaty orbs found by StarwatcherHB and Zanna640 are actually out of focus spiders near the camera lens at Dry Lake but secretly we hope they are benevolent forest spirits like the Kodama or Yumboes. http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0006w71 

Here are a few more spider videos to make your skin crawl:

• This close-up found by DataDroid at Muddy Frost: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0003wii 
• Spider on a log found by Snorticus at Muddy frost: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0004lgb
• and Jokergirl found this big spider just dropping in at Cold Snowflake: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00020n3

8) Elephantom
Citizen scientist moderator ksigler noted that these elephants seems to appear out of nowhere at Cool Silence. It's amazing how in all of our videos these massive beasts seem to be so unobtrusive in the forest, ghost-like one might say.
http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0002p15 

7) Attack of the not so killer bees
Citizen scientist Eswiniarski is pretty sure that this guinea baboon was stung by a bee in this video from Dry Lake. Luckily he seems to have made a quick recovery.

originals here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP000726c and http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP000726d 


6) Ghost & Pirate Chimps 
Night mode on our camera traps sometimes makes the chimps look extra ghostly on the videos. Citizen scientist MargC found that our ginger chimp from Dry Lake named Roux looks especially pale in black and white (http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0006ovo and you can see more videos of Roux here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/collections/CCPL0000fm)

While matching chimps, we rely on special features that distinguish each chimp from one another.The night videos are often tricky for this purpose since many of the features get washed out in low light. Citizen scientists Eswiniarski and AnLand noticed however that this male chimp from Lingering Shape has a special feature that is probably only seen at night: a right eye that does not reflect any light. 
(original videos: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0005mzg and http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0005mz8)

5) Fires of Samhain
Before Halloween was Halloween, it was Samhain. And a big part of Samhain is fire. "It is suggested that the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun, helping the "powers of growth" and holding back the decay and darkness of winter. They may also have served to symbolically "burn up and destroy all harmful influences".Accounts from the 18th and 19th centuries suggest that the fires (as well as their smoke and ashes) were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers".

We have a lot of fires at our current site Dry Lake and they burn during the day and night. Some are natural due to the dryness of the site and some are set by people for agricultural purposes.

How do chimpanzees react to fire you ask? Check out this paper by Pruetz and LaDuke "Reaction to fire by savanna chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) at Fongoli, Senegal: Conceptualization of "fire behavior" and the case for a chimpanzee model."

Thanks to citizen scientists starwatcherHB, Morra and clt21duke for highlighting these great clips (http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0006r5w , http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00075a6 , http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0006ob4)


4) The forests have eyes (and they are adorable, I mean spooky)

  
Thanks to citizen scientists jwidness and snorticus for finding these great clips from Red Water and Dry Lake! (http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0003a1x , http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0007ape)


3) Halloween photobomb
Ever get that feeling that there is sssssssssssome body behind you? Citizen Scientist rlb66xyz 6 noticed that this Cool Silence duiker is being seriously photobombed by a snake slithering towards it in the lower right part of the video right above the duiker's head. Sssssssssssssneaky!

(original video: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0002nqg) 


2) Going batty
You wouldn't guess that we'd get a lot of bats on our camera traps - but we do! In this clip from Quiet Wood citizen scientist markehurd saw something a bit batty in this red river hog video clip

(original video here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00004ei)

And If you want to check out more bat videos visit our bat tag group: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/collections/CCPL00000l

1) A potto, a galago and the legend of the egbere
We did not expect to see the more elusive smaller primates like galagos (bushbabies) and pottos in our video footage. But our amazing, observant and patient citizen scientists managed to find both! We end our Halloween countdown with this legend from Nigeria about bushbabies.

Bushbabies in the Yoruba language are called 'egbere' and their legend has been passed from generation to generation. The egbere are little, supernatural human like creatures(or spirits) that wonder through the forest carrying a mat (their tail) and lamp (their eyes). Their unique cry sounds like that of a child or little baby which lures humans to them at night.According to popular folklore, bushbabies are usually encountered by hunters deep in the forests. It is said that anyone who is able to steal an egbere's mat will become rich. But, the person has to withstand 7 days of tribulation caused by the creature who wants its property back and the hunter must not lose site of the mat during this time. During those days, the person will not be able to sleep because of the creature's incessant cries which only he can hear. If the person gives up within the 7 days, the Bush Baby will kill them, the fate that awaits most people who try to steal the egbere's mat!

adapted from http://www.mojidelano.com/2013/11/when-folklore-meets-reality-bush-baby.html and http://knowalotmore.blogspot.de/2012/12/top-5-scariest-nigerian-spirit-creatures.html

Click here to see all our galago videos: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/collections/CCPL00009e
and potto videos: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/collections/CCPL0000h3

We hope you enjoyed our 10 day countdown and we wish you a very Happy Halloween from Chimp&See!

Forest Caviar

Today's #DailyZoo is of a mangabey eating frog eggs from a leaf - also known as forest caviar. User "itsmestephanie" first pointed out the monkey eating goop and user "ksigler" figured out that the goop was actually frog eggs!

video can be seen here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP0003ls8

To find out more check out this paper in which the behaviour was first documented:

Rödel MO, Range F, Seppänen JT, Noë R (2002) Caviar in the rain forest: monkeys as frog-spawn predators in Taï National Park, Ivory Coast. Journal of Tropical Ecology. 18(2):289-294

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/friederike.range/Cavia%20in%20the%20rain%20forest%20(PDF%20File).pdf

Abstract:

The high predation pressure in aquatic environments is generally assumed to be the ultimate cause of terrestrial breeding in anurans (Downie 1993, Magnusson & Hero 1991, Poynton 1964, Yorke 1983). It has evolved multiple times and is presently found in most anuran families (Bogart 1981, Duellman 1992). It is often associated with higher humidity and thus lower desiccation risk in tropical forests (Duellman & Trueb 1986). Most clutches that are oviposited terrestrially are either hidden in subterranean refuges or attached more or less exposed to vegetation (Duellman & Trueb 1986, Lamotte & Lescure 1977). Exposed clutches however, face the risk of desiccation, even in rain-forest environments (Rödel pers. obs.) and are still vulnerable to predation. Such disparate groups as various arthropods (Villa 1977, 1980; Villa & Townsend 1983, Vonesh 2000), frogs (Crump 1974), snakes (Roberts 1994, Scott & Starrett 1974, Warkentin 1995) and birds (Brosset 1967), have been reported to feed on these clutches. The foam nests,which occur in at least six tropical anuran families, seem to provide better protection. Their drying surface and their more or less liquid interior offers the tadpoles an aquatic environment that is well protected against desiccation and predation (Duellman & Trueb 1986, Seymour & Loveridge 1994). In addition the bubbles of the foam facilitate oxygen diffusion within the nest and may even provide a capacious oxygen store for eggs and hatched tadpoles (Seymour & Loveridge 1994). Few predators have been reported to feed on foam nests, one of which,paradoxically, is a frog (Drewes & Altig 1996). In the Taï National Park, Ivory Coast, we discovered a quite unexpected group of predators preying on foam nests and frog clutches exposed on leaves: monkeys.

New Chimp&See primate guide!

Our citizen scientist moderators at #chimpandsee are AMAZING! 

Lead by user 'ksigler' they have put together a primate guide so that those of you who would like to hashtag the primate videos to the species level can help us gather even more data! 

One million THANK YOUs to our citizen scientists who are blowing us away with their initiative and commitment! Dankeshoen & Merci!

Check out the primate guide here:
http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/boards/BCP000000e/discussions/DCP00007sb

Roughly five jillion monkeys and a mangabey selfie

For today's #DailyZoo: monkeys!

User 'devilstower' found a great clip of "roughly five jillion monkeys" travelling on the canopy floor and 'Boleyn' found this very sweet young mangabey front and center in front of one of our cameras and hashtagged it #selfie.

See the giant group of mangabeys here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00023cf

and the selfie here: http://talk.chimpandsee.org/#/subjects/ACP00030us

Help us classify videos at Chimp&See!

What might you see on Chimp&See?

The Chimp&See Videos are collected by our dedicated PanAf site managers and collaborators from 40 temporary and long-term research sites across Africa.

What can you expect when you are scanning through the videos?

Sometimes you will see blank videos because maybe leaves or a bug triggered the camera.

Sometimes you will see our site managers and field staff testing the cameras and adjusting the settings, so prepare for some nostril shots!

But hopefully a lot of the time you will see some of the unique wildlife from many different chimpanzee habitats!

Before submitting their videos to Chimp&See, our site managers need to quickly scan the videos to make sure the cameras are working properly and set up at locations that actually record animals.  During some of these scans some amazing observations have already been made!

In January we released a press release with our partners the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project, Ugandan Wildlife Authority, Uganda National Council for Science and Technology  and Panthera

You can read the whole press release here: 
First Known Footage of African Golden Cat Hunting in Daylight Captured in Uganda

Samuel Angedakin, Project Manager at our collaborative Kibale Forest site in Uganda, recorded this amazing footage of an African Golden Cat hunting some monkeys, the first time ever this has been recorded (spoiler alert: the cat goes home hungry): 

More recently, Ivonne Kienast, Project Manager at our collaborative site in Bateke Plateau Gabon (in cooperation with the Aspinall Foundation and Panthera) recorded a male lion on several of her camera traps. This marked the first time a lion had been seen in Gabon since the last century and has already drawn focus and conservation action to the region to encourage natural repatriation of lions to the area.

The full press release can be found here:
Back from the Brink of Extinction: Lion Returns to Central African Homelands in Gabon

We hope you find many more exciting discoveries on Chimp&See! Make sure to hashtag interesting species and discuss interesting videos in Talk! Thank you so much for your help and support!