Tracking Quiz website

Tracking Quizzes

Quiz #42 - Question

Photos and text by Brian Booth

 
Here’s a quiz that may be simple, or may be challenging, depending on how familiar you are with the desert.
Photo 42A

Habitat: Sonoran Desert in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, southwestern Arizona, near the Mexican border.

Time of year: March.
 

Photo 42B

I got up at dawn for a hike, and encountered the wash shown here in Photo 42B. It was very dry and rocky, seemingly an impossible place to find animal tracks.
 

Photo 42C

But aha, I found a little spot of dust amidst the rocks, and it registered a flurry of small tracks in the deep shadows of the early morning light.

Photo 42D is zoomed in. There were so many tracks that it was hard to isolate any individual tracks to identify them.
 
To help you out, I have included Photo 42E. In this group of tracks, the stride measured 3 inches, and the trail width was 2¼ inches.
 
Photo 42F

Photos 42F / 42G are zoomed in to show individual tracks. They measured 1½ inch long by 1½ inch wide.

Photo 42G

 

Questions:
  1. What animal made the tracks?
  2. How can you rule out other similar animals?

Quiz #42 - Answer

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