Chicago Wildlife Watch Talk

Mystery Animal

  • nancybohrer by nancybohrer

    http://static.zooniverse.org/www.chicagowildlifewatch.org/subjects/540f862769736d129df43001.jpg
    What on earth is this? A domestic dog in a wig? When I went to see if it could be discussed, the image disappeared. I even loaded into Picasa and tried changing stuff in the photo, but it is a mystery.

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  • mason_UWI by mason_UWI scientist

    The black and white coloration, and especially the white striping, indicate that this is a striped skunk. If you click on the 'skunk' tag there are a few additional photos there (the blue and grey dots underneath the photo on the top right) that you can look at by clicking between the dots. It is a little odd how it's holding it's body though, so I can understand how you thought it was flipped around.

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  • nancybohrer by nancybohrer

    I think the stripe is along the side and not on the spine. Does that happen?

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  • mason_UWI by mason_UWI scientist

    Actually, the white stripes on the skunk species we see in Chicago (i.e. the striped skunk) do indeed go along the sides towards the animals back, and there is a black stripe along the spine. However, towards the neck and head the two white stripes come together.

    picture of striped skunk

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    It's so cute! Pity about... well, you know... :p

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  • nancybohrer by nancybohrer

    Thank you. Words cannot express how helpful that picture is. All I know about is the fat little critters who come to my yard after dark sometimes, and I try to really keep my distance! In fact, it would be great if you could post some pictures of each animal, in full light and close up like this animal. I really don't know what a woodchuck even looks like close up, much less a muskrat. And I've only see a grey fox and a red fox a couple of times. If I had seen this picture, I would have had no problem classifying it; I almost marked it as a house cat.

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  • mason_UWI by mason_UWI scientist

    Hi Nancy,

    The internet is a wonderful resource for photos like this. A quick google image search can net you photos of:

    Mink

    mink

    Muskrat

    muskrat

    or woodchucks

    woodchuck

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    They're all so cute! Even the muskrat, although I have to say that it can be a bit startling to see one of them crawl out of a pond. I see them on Chicago golf courses sometimes!

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  • nancybohrer by nancybohrer

    It would be nice if you could have a link page with collected images of these animals, simply because a google search for muskrat or mink will often return images that aren't of a muskrat or mink, or of a variety that is never seen here. Sometimes its very hard to tell the size of the animals from the image, and I have seen several where I had a hard time deciding whether the animal was a coyote or a domestic dog. Also am confused between the squirrel differences, especially since one is said to be 2 feet long. I don't think I personally have ever seen a squirrel of that size. Sometimes I wish that there was an optional button that said "I am iffy about this animal."

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hi @nancybohrer, one of the great things about citizen science is that there's no need for an "I am iffy" button, because so many different people see each image. If of 20 classifiers, 10 say muskrat and 10 say mink, then the data reduction will automatically flag that image as being difficult to ID, and a scientist will have a look. But if 19 people say muskrat, even if all of them are unsure, we've found that their instincts are generally right! Crowds of amateurs have a funny wisdom that way. Snapshot Serengeti gets 97% accuracy even with a very simple data reduction process, and they hope to soon have an even better process for even better accuracy.

    In short: citizen science supports, even encourages, educated guessing. Just take your best shot; that will help the project. Thanks!! 😃

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