This week's mystery:
Questions:
1. What species?
2. Which foot?
Additional information:
There has been a lot of great discussion in the comments, so I thought it would be helpful to include this picture with an expanded view of the trail.
Note: If you haven't looked at the comments yet and want to try and come up with an answer yourself, you might want to do so before checking out the comments. They quickly jumped beyond my questions, so I definitely recommend checking them out and posting your own thoughts and questions after you have taken whatever time you want pondering things yourself.
14 comments:
Looks like a female grizzly, left front foot and rear right foot, heading southwest maybe? Just finished eating, also shook her head violently, probably a sneeze, then veered off suddenly to the left? Wouldn't be surprised if there was another set of tracks from a cub or peer on the right. Could've been "horsing around." Wouldn't be surprised to find doo-doo within a few hundred feet either. Thanks for posting the pic. It's awesome!
Actually, the more I study that one track, the more it looks like a lope. But everything else looks the same. Sorry.
It'd be great if folks leaving comments that give away the answers would at least also explain how they came to those conclusions so that the rest of us could benefit from it.
I agree about the grizzly id, based on number of toes, overall shape, and the ginormous size including the distance of nail marks from the toe pads.
If I remember right, a bear's outside toe is larger than the rest, so that does make this the left front.
I'd be really curious to know more about the sexing. The only thing I really know about sexing (that females generally have wider hips, and therefore their hind feet often register outside of their fronts) would indicate that this is a male, but I know there's a lot more to sexing than that one little tidbit I picked up somewhere. And if the animal is in the middle of a turn, then the location of the rear foot doesn't tell me anything about sex at all.
I'm also curious about what looks like another track just ahead of that front foot. If that's the heel of the next step, then I'm on board with the sharp left veer also.
That about maxes out what I can see. I'd like to know when the picture was taken (like, recently?). It looks like the sun is fairly low on the horizon, and it's cold. But if this was taken in Alaska, then that doesn't really narrow anything down, does it? :)
Yeah, wow. You've gone way beyond my ability. I'll second Deanna's request for explaining how you come to your conclusions, because I would love to learn!
It's great to get this kind of feedback, some of the conjectures are things that I should easily have been able to know if I had done a better job of documenting the wider perspective instead of focusing on the individual tracks as I tend to do. Maybe being "held accountable" in this fashion will finally get me to start paying attention on a more consistent basis.
To answer your question Deanna, this was taken in mid-April. And yes, it is in Alaska :)
I do have a picture with a little wider viewpoint that I will post later in the week that may help out with some of the other thoughts that have come up, but I would love to hear more in the mean time.
Yes to grizzly, as the toe morphology and claws are great identifiers. Actually, I don't think I'm seeing a lope, though, but rather a pause. I tend to go with female, as well, but it looks more like a slow meander, a pause, deep toes, head and shoulder turn far right, as if accompanied, so I would go with cub there, too. Then not a violent head turn so much as maybe a snort, showing up in that left front. The rear right has elongations that display a movement across the upper torso, which would be the head movement. Deep pressure in the left front thoracic area backing up the right turn. Maybe a turn to three-thirty? If it is a pause, then there will be the right front up out of the shot at about one-o'clock off the left front. I agree with the left turn, and the toe ridges and claws back that up. If that's the left rear heel at the edge of the frame, then it's further back-up.
I think the initial right turn happened at the pause, as if mom? might be stopping to assess the situation. If before the pause, then the right rear would be turned out.
I can't disagree with the stomach indicator, either, but it's not very clear, so I wouldn't bank on it. Still, I wouldn't be surprised to see scat in the vicinity, either. However, if there's scat, then I wouldn't put the animals in a highly cautious state, so if mom is assessing, then there must have been either a disturbance, or maybe junior (or mate, or dog, or snowmobile. . . ) caused her to halt for a check.
Okay, I'm just going to let my ignorance hang out here a bit... I don't know much at all about pressure releases and am not sure how easy it would be to explain the ones you are seeing more than you have already, so for the moment I will stick with things that I feel like I will have an easier time grasping.
Why is everyone convinced it is a right hind? The positioning does make it seem like a right to me, but the toes confuse me. I can only see four toes there, the one on the left seems the biggest and the one on the right seems the smallest. Of course, one of the toes is apparently not showing up, which I would expect to be the smallest (i.e. the inner) toe. Since the what appears to be the largest toe is on the left I would think it is a left foot. So I've got conflicting clues. I'm not very familiar with bear foot morphology, particularly in the hind foot.
When you say the claws backup the turn to the left, are you referring to how claws marks all angle back toward the right?
Why female?
I absolutely agree. The right rear track is the left hind foot. The three large toes are from left to right, the smaller being on the right side, and the smallest not visible at all to me, says left hind. Heck, it could even be the track of a second bear in line. But I think it belongs to the front left track at it seems to show coordinated movement in the scenario I proposed. The only other way I can see it playing out (as one bear's tracks) is that it IS a lope, but I can't see that turn happening naturally and easily in a lope. Plus, I'm not seeing the pressure and destruction I usually see in a lope. I would still expect a t-step in there.
I feel like I'm taking up valuable space, but I wanted to point out that there is a line that happens in that right rear (left hind) track between the rightmost visible toes at the base and it extends down the pad, kind of making a large circle below those three large toes. That line is characteristic, along with those elongations, in that pivot. It also backs up your left hind identification because the hips have to twist around the ball mount instead of rocking across it, which would happen if it was the right hind foot, which would show a deeper lean.
Quigley, space on the Internet is pretty much free and I certainly value your contributions, so please feel free to post more!
I've added a picture with a wider viewpoint to the post for folks to consider in their interpretations. So check it out if you haven't already.
Hey, Quig; and hello, Jonathan. This is a cool idea.
Quig: The track in the bottom left side of the photo, the hind foot, I think that whole distortion IS the lean. It's a right hind, and it follows the characteristic walk of 2x2. The distortion is caused, which you correctly read, in what was most likely the interaction between the animals, and the right-to-left twist made the right hind foot pivot rightward, which bowed out the inside arch, pitching the toes slightly rightward. The left part of the turn caused the typically small and less-visible toe to dig into the ice, which makes it look like the biggest toe. Notice the alignment of the toes, and that t-step isn't there. That bow is coordinated with the hips and midsection, which is what that kind of turn would affect during that kind of walk. That's why it looks like a left hind. Nice pick-up on those elongations in the thoracic, though, but notice their directionality, too. I don't see a sneeze either, but female does seem to be the first impression. I would add that such a casual walk puts these animals in relatively safe territory. The ice makes this one tricky. Nicely done.
(Edit) Wow. I need coffee. Bottom RIGHT side of the photos as we see them posted, not bottom left. Sorry for the confusion.
LOL
OR . . . right hand is overstepped by right hind; left hand is understepped by . . . yes indeed . . . left hind, and the animal pivots (all the tracks belong to the same animal). Turn to the right, still valid, but the right hand IS in the modified t-step, and the right hind places as an understep now, while the left hand is now out of the shot. The animal is leaning and turning to the right on the right pace, and the next track after the left hand is a kick-out of the left hind (of which, we can see the heel only).
It is REALLY hard to identify things without having the big picture to work from. This focused study is fantastic for honing the observation and movement skills.
I've posted my analysis in a new post. I should get a new track of the week up later today (Monday).
It appears a lot more people are still coming to this post than to my analysis post. I've also just posted a new track of the week. Please go to jrgoff.blogspot.com if you want to read the new content.
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