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Quirks and Quarks

Candid Creatures - science from animal selfies

In a new book zoologist Roland Kays collects a trove of pictures taken by automatic "camera traps" that capture pictures of often elusive animals and provide valuable information to scientists

Hidden cameras triggered by animal movement have provided valuable science

CBC Radio ·
A female puma was photographed eating a deer by a camera trap in the Santa Susana Mountains northwest of Los Angeles. (US National Park Service)
Quirks and Quarks16:47Candid Creatures - Science From Animal Selfies - 2016/06/18 - Pt. 5
Long before phone cameras and the Internet made human selfies ubiquitous, scientists figured out how to get animals to take pictures of themselves using motion-activated cameras known as camera traps.
These pictures captured things scientists could never normally see, since animals don't avoid camouflaged cameras the way they often avoid nosy biologists.

In a new book, Candid Creatures, How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature, biologist Dr. Roland Kays, a researcher at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and North Carolina State University, has collected hundreds of these animal selfies that reveal what rare and elusive animals are up to when we're not watching. 

Related Links

- Candid Creatures - publisher's site
- New York Times feature
- Popular Science feature

 

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