Present but invisible!

Have you wondered which animal visited your garden unseen by you? Nibbled on a choice root, bitten some of the fruits or run away with the flowers?

Most wild animals are generally shy of people. A lot of them are crepuscular if around people; meaning they are active during dawn and dusk, not so much during the day. Some even roam unseen in the day. But how to find out which of these share their habitat with you?

Here is one way. While walking on loose or wet soil you may have seen your feet leave behind tell-tale signs of your walk. It is the same with most animals! Where the soil is soft or wet you can clearly make out that an animal has walked the path.

If you live in an area that has a fair bit of vegetation or has a park close by, take a stroll on the mud paths and look out for animal footprints. Such footprints are called pugmarks if we are talking about a dog or cat; or more generally they are called 'tracks'. Let’s first see how to differentiate between the pugmarks of a dog and a cat.

All species of cat (eg tiger, leopard, jungle cat) have claws, but none of them (excepting the cheetah) leave behind claw marks in their pugmarks. This is because their claws are safely retracted most of the time. In contrast, all species of dog (eg wolf, jackal) show claw marks in their pugmarks since their claws do not retract. A second difference is that the centre of the paw (the pad) leaves more semicircular marks in cats and more triangular marks in dogs.

The photo of two tracks shows how you can use these two features to tell between a dog and a leopard. Of course a domestic cat pugmark is much smaller when compared with a dog’s!

How to tell a dog and leopard apart. Note that the pugmark on the left is facing downwards. Photo: Sanjay Gubbi

You can use this guide to guess some of animals found around you by  their tracks (not according to scale)

The illustration shows what a cow's track looks like. In comparison, the cloven hoofs of a deer are closer to each other and have pointed tip. A wild pig’s track is similar to that of a domestic pig. A jungle cat pugmark is slightly larger than that of a domestic cat but smaller than that of a leopard. A peafowl’s track is at least twice the size of a chicken.

Keep practicing identifying the tracks around you, so that soon, when you come across an animal footprint, you can surprise your family and friends by pulling a Sherlock Holmes and declaring which animal has walked the path unseen!

Apart from tracks, some wild animals also leave behind scrape marks made by their claws either while searching for food or to mark territories. Big cats like tigers and leopards leave behind scrape marks, urine scent marks and faeces to mark the boundaries of their territories and to attract potential mates.

Wildlife scientists and nature enthusiasts, who know how to differentiate different footmarks and faeces of between species, can tell which particular wild animal or bird has walked along recently. To gather information about the presence or absence of wild animals (like tigers, leopards, wild dogs, etc) they walk kilometers inside forest roads and other wildlife habitats, looking for these tell-tale clues that animals leave behind them.

The results of these sorts of surveys are vital. They tell us about where these animals are found, and other time, can also be used to monitor changes in their distribution.

An edited version of this article was published in the Hindu , In school - http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/present-but-invisible/article7703329.ece