Snapshot Serengeti Talk

Resting behaviour

  • deborah.winterton by deborah.winterton

    Hi!

    I'm new to SnapShot Serengeti and just have a question regarding the resting classification. Since I'm familiar with Equines (i have two horses), i know that a horse doesn't necessarily have to be lying down to be resting. They will often rest standing but this is usually evident by placing their weight on one hind foot while resting the other with their head in a lower / medium carriage. From personal observation on many horses i have sort of found that the majority of resting is done in this position and if this is the case with domestic horses i could imagine that it would be more so in wild zebra, especially when threatened by predators (since they're more vulnerable when lying down). The one individual in the foreground of this picture looks like she (i think its a female) is resting with her right hind leg in the resting position - though i might be wrong and also didn't classify the photo as such but rather as standing and eating.

    So my question is this, are pictures only classified as resting when animals are lying down? Would be interested to know others opinions.

    Thanks and great project!

    Debbi

    Posted

  • tillydad by tillydad moderator in response to deborah.winterton's comment.

    Hi, and welcome to the site .

    Thanks for your observations regarding horses . For the purposes of this site you were correct in classifying the image as you did, i.e. standing and eating . The resting category is to be used when, for example, these zebra were laid down . It is basically when an animal is neither clearly moving or standing, so a baboon sat down would be resting and any when antelopes were laid down etc.

    I hope that this helps, and if you have any further questions about this, or anything else, please ask away . There are plenty of people to answer your questions 😃

    Posted