Is anyone else doing Snapshot Serengeti? It’s a bunch of pictures from motion activated cameras set up all over the serengeti. They are asking for the public’s help to classify all the photos. They have a list of animals and identifying features and you try to classify as best you can, even if you aren’t sure they want your best guesses as that still helps them to classify the photos. There’s more info in the discussion section on how that helps them.
There’s a lot of nothing photos but then you get some really good ones or some funny ones. Most of the time there are three photos and you can click play and they will play in sequence, like this one. Sometimes you will get some really strange ones; like the elephant penis* or surprise baboon eyeball.
They are in the last few days of an indiegogo campaign to keep it funded. So if you like it and want to keep it going the link to it is on the blog page.
This is so cool! I’ve made a contribution and will start classifying today.
[sub]By the way, I’ve already found 2 elephant penis photos! They are hard to miss :D[/sub]
Yes, elephants seem to like to show off their junk, wildbeests like to show their butts and warthogs like to stand right up against the camera so all you see is a rough hide that looks a bit like the lunar landscape.
It is so addictive that when I do manage to go offline I have caught myself trying to classify things. I looked at my dog and tried to decide if she was a warthog or hyena (I love her but she is not what you’d call pretty).
Cool. I have sent the link to my mother. She has a motion-sensitive camera set up in her garden, trying to get pics of the badgers that dig up her lawn. So far just lots of cats, though, so she might appreciate some variety!
Are you supposed to click " nothing here" if there is something there, but it is just impossible to identify? I had a close up of a quadruped that was some sort of antelope, but it was too small a segment to identify.
I’ve just been making my best guess. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at IDing antelopes by coat colour alone… now how can I include this skill on my resume?
I’ve found the really close, tan antelopes mostly seem to be eland.
I think they still want best guesses. Sometimes I do “nothing there” if all I see is a vague outline of something and I can’t really make out color or size. However sometimes I just throw my hands up and click on “discuss” and go see what people are discussing on the boards so I don’t have to decide.
As I understand how this works, you are not the only one identifying a picture so if you are really wrong and everyone else is right the computer will go with everyone else’s identification. If something is so vague that everyone gives a different answer it just keeps showing it to more people to get more of a consensus. Maybe eventually they throw it in a “too vague” pile and stop trying to identify it if they can’t get enough agreement but I don’t know. The gist of it is, don’t fret too much because you won’t ruin it if you’re wrong.
I have also taken to google for a little extra help, different photo angles and pictures of young, young wildebeests and buffalo threw me off a couple times because their horns are different. I also found some stuff in the discussion boards that may be of help. Animal butts Size comparisons Some African mammal photos
Then click on that guys name and check out all his other photo sets, too.
