Fair warning, I don't see myself running my toots any different than I did my tweets: there will be hashtags, threads,
random musings, bad ghost show tooting, and I've been image describing for a bit so that's not new.

The only difference is I also have a handle on the scicomm site at @lisavipes
that will only be tweets related to #BirdGlamour, #NameThatTrack and my other scicomm activities, in case that's what people want to see (but it will be here too, because why not?)

@lisavipes #namethattrack and podiatry! An appropriate overlap! I considered going pre-med to be a podiatrist in undergrad because I had to have a surgery to treat a tarsal coalition when I was a teenager

During all of that, I run two #SciComm projects:
#NameThatTrack, where I post images of animal tracks and traces and you use your tracking skills to guess the track-maker!

The other is a #SciArt project called #BirdGlamour, where I use cosmetics as a convo starter to get ppl interested in the lives, life history, and conservation of birds and other critters!

You can find me on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok with the same username!

I also run two #scicomm projects:
#NameThatTrack, where I post images of animal tracks and traces and you use your tracking skills to guess the track-maker! Based on thus week's Name That Track we've got a good group of trackers here!
The other is a #sciart project called #BirdGlamour, where I use cosmetics as a convo starter to get ppl interested in the lives, life history, and conservation of birds and other critters!
I hope you enjoyed this episode of #NameThatTrack!
If you have pics of your study critters making marks while going up and down trees, you know I'd love to see them!
#ichnology
I think there may be a puncture that didn't show up well or was grown over. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they're should be 5 punctures. I *think* we're dealing with a small bear, likely black bear. Of course, there's that hint of a question mark.
#ichnology
#NameThatTrack
So, we're left with a situation that often happens in #ichnology: there's a really good hypothesis (bear in this case), and another hypothesis that also could fit pretty well (cougar).
What do we do?
We look for missing info.
Check out the spacing of the punctures
#NameThatTrack
What about climbing up and down cougar marks?
Now that's something I don't have a good image source for.
Cats put up a good front being stealthy and graceful, but...c'mon. We've all seen a cat completely biff a landing. A cougar could have slid and slipped a bit when climbing down the tree.
#NameThatTrack #ichnology
What about big North American kitties?
When they scratch, they SCRATCH, leaving very visible (and scent-marked) territory scrapes.
Cougars (and other medium-largish North American kitties) don't just leave one territory swipe at a trunk and are done. They SCRATCH. The tree will look somewhat shredded.
Check out the image of cougar territory marks from https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/mountain-lion.htm
#ichnology
#NameThatTrack
Mountain Lions - Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Check out this image from
https://bcwildernessvisions.com/the-puzzle-of-the-marks-on-the-tree/
It shows marks of a bear climbing down a tree.
They look VERY similar to this week's #NameThatTrack
#ichnology
The puzzle of the marks on the tree – Karen Rempel's New York Love Affair