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Tracking
Quizzes
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Quiz #42 - Question
Photos and text by Brian Booth |
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Here’s a quiz that may be simple, or may be
challenging, depending on how familiar you are with the desert. |
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Photo 42A Habitat: Sonoran
Desert in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, southwestern Arizona,
near the Mexican border.
Time of year: March.
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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.
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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. |
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Photo 42D is zoomed in. There
were so many tracks that it was hard to isolate any individual
tracks to identify them.
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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.
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Photo 42F Photos 42F / 42G
are zoomed in to show individual tracks. They measured 1½ inch long
by 1½ inch wide. |
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Photo 42G |
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Questions:
- What animal made the tracks?
- How can you rule out other similar animals?
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