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Describe three categories of tracks and associate animals with those categories
List several different kinds of animal sign
Track Scat Sign Tracker Trail Gait Plantigrade Digitigrade Unguligrade
Animal footprints or tracks can help you learn about animals and their behavior. However, tracks are just one type of animal sign. There are many others. Any evidence of an animal is considered “sign.”
Animal Track Types
Plantigrade – Plantigrades put their full foot on the ground (humans, bears) Digitigrade -These animals walk on their digits, or toes. (dogs, cats) Unguligrades -These animals basically walk on their toe nails! (deer, elk, moose)
Animal Gaits
There are multiple types of gaits, all dependent on the anatomy of each type of animal. (Please refer to the attached diagrams of prints and gaits)
two examples. If you listen you will hear a whole wild world all around you that you may not have noticed before. Different bird species can be identified by their unique song or call. Coyotes yip and howl, elk grunt and bugle, bears growl and snort, and squirrels squeak and chirp. Knowing the language of the animals that inhabit an area can help the observer identify what animals are there even if none can be seen!
Other clues that can help determine what species have been frequenting an area include looking for disturbed soil where animals might have tried to dig or move rocks or stumps. For example, bears will often tear apart stumps looking for insects to eat, and ungulates such as deer and elk will rub the bark off trees in early fall using their antlers.
Look along the sides of the trail and find animal sign. What kind of tracks and scat can you find?
There is other animal sign present, such as owl pellets, feathers and hair lost by passing animals. Can you identify what kind of animals passed through here by the animal sign present?
Have a classroom set of track books or check one out from the local library. The WaterLife Center MAY have one you can borrow. Divide students into groups of two to four, give each group a copy of the book to use.
Animal Sign Scavenger Hunt
Advised each student or group of students to take 10 minutes to see how many signs of animals they can see. Describe or draw each animal sign.
Be sure students note what criteria they used to decipher the animal sign they observed.
Spend two to three minutes standing still and listening. How many different animals can you hear? How many bird species? Can you identify any of them?
For a winter time follow-up, have the students measure track sinuosity as a surrogate measure of habitat use. (A more sinuous track pattern means greater habitat use, a less sinuous track pattern means travel, but not habitat use.)
