Zimbabwe: Lions Roar When the Weather’s Right, New Study in Zimbabwe Shows
March 14, 2021
By Ryan Truscott
Lions roar more frequently when they are near to water, when it’s humid, and on calm windless nights, a new study of nearly 1,000 big cat roars in Zimbabwe has found. The data gained from custom-built collars is helping scientists better understand the animals’ habits, and the threats they face.
The study using new technology developed by researchers from the University of Oxford was undertaken in the Bubye Valley Conservancy, a privately-owned wildlife sanctuary in the arid south-west of the country that is home to around 500 lions and other members of the Big Five.
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Something was amiss with the giraffes. The animals, which looked healthy in daylight, seemed to sprout strange underarm tumors at night. This bizarre scene was captured by nocturnal camera traps as part of the Snapshot Serengeti project in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.
Concerned, the project’s citizen scientists alerted the experts. “They were like, what’s going on with these giraffes?” recalls Meredith Palmer, a behavioral ecologist with Snapshot Serengeti. Careful examination revealed a surprising culprit: dozens of yellow-billed oxpecker birds, which had taken to cuddling in giraffe armpits at night.
Why didn’t researchers notice these freeloaders sooner? The artificial intelligence algorithm tasked with processing camera data missed them entirely.