Discovering MammalWeb

17-02-2020

We are very excited to tell you about the new module on the MammalWeb platform that will enable you to view MammalWeb data from different locations and focussing on different species. By clicking "Discover" in the MammalWeb menu bar, you can search for data on a particular species by selecting it from the drop-down list on the right. This will provide information on the total number of records for this species each year as well as the number of records from different locations on the map.

You can also search for records based on grid cell by selecting this option from the top left of the screen and then selecting the grid cell you are interested in. This will then display the number of image sequences uploaded and classified in that grid cell, as well as showing the most common species recorded from that location. You can take a broad view, or zoom in to a particular area. Aggregated records can be viewed to a resolution of 0.1° of latitude by 0.2° of longitude. That is a resolution of about 70km2, ensuring that you can investigate the records in detail without revealing the exact locations of individual camera traps or of sensitive species. We hope that this will help you to see how all your efforts fit into the bigger picture of European mammal records. Have fun exploring!

Social media research

28-08-2019

At MammalWeb, we are interested in understanding more about how social media could be used to help people engage with our project, and how we could improve our pages. Therefore we are planning on doing some research, and would like to make people aware of this. We will be monitoring our social media pages and anonymised data may be analysed in order to understand how people engage with posts. No individuals, accounts or user names will be identified for research purposes. Examples of the data we are interested in include overall number of likes or shares a post receives. We will not be looking at individual responses.  

Overall, we aim to use our social media pages to provide educational materials, relevant news and project updates as well as to encourage discussion and communication between participants. We hope this research will help us improve our pages and engage with more people!

We are happy to answer any questions or concerns, for more information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

New site creation wizard!

04-08-2019

To make it easier to create sites, Helen has created a "wizard" that will guide you through the process of setting up a new site.  The information is the same (although look out for a couple of extra questions about the use of bait and the time during which the camera was active; these aren't compulsory, as you can just accept the defaults) but it should be much easier to enter than previously.  See below for an example of the data entry interface.

We hope this is helpful but, as always, let us know (by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) if you spot a problem or have changes to suggest.

How to tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel

29-07-2019

Stoats and weasels are very closely related, belonging to the same genus, Mustela. This can make it tricky to tell them apart in camera trap images. Thankfully, there are a few defining features that can be used to distinguish between them.

The most obvious difference in appearance between the two is the black, bushy tip at the end of a stoat’s tail. Comparatively, the tail of a weasel is short, stubby and entirely orange-brown.

However, if the tail isn’t visible, there are other subtle differences that can be used to tell these small mammals apart. Stoats are typically larger than weasels, measuring about 30-40cm, whereas weasels have a whole body length of 20-27cm. In addition, stoats run with bounding movements, characterised by an arched back. Weasels, however, move more quickly with their back flat.

If you happen to spot one of these animals in winter, you may notice that the coat is completely white. Weasels remain orange-brown all year round, so if this is the case, you have definitely spotted a stoat. However, stoats’ fur doesn’t always change colour, in which case you can use the clues above to identify which mustelid you’re looking at.

Dippy on Tour - and some of your favourite images

23-07-2019

Rather a long time since we posted news here - sorry!  However, as those of you who follow us on Twitter, Facebook or through our newsletter know, we have not been idle ...

Now we're into the school holidays, those of you in the north east might be interested to know about our exhibit at the Great North Museum: Hancock. Until October, the museum will be hosting Dippy, the iconic cast of Diplodocus carnegii from London's Natural History Museum.  Associated with Dippy's visit is a series of exhibits, intended to increase connections with nature, past, present and future. As part of that, the museum's Natural Northumbria gallery has been transformed.  It now hosts a number of touch screens, each associated with a different habitat type.  A large number of schools across the north east have been putting out camera traps over recent months and have uploaded their captured photos to the different screens.  If you get a chance to go along, you'll love seeing Dippy - and do have a go at classifying images for the Dippy Schools too!

Durham University has put out a press release about the exhibit and they have also collated some of the mammal pictures that MammalWeb participants have identified as favourites over the years.  Some of those are available on Facebook, whilst a larger collection can be seen in this Flickr album.

Easter competition closes

25-04-2019

Thanks to everyone who contributed classifications over the past two weeks in pursuit of the prize-winning Easter photographs.  Altogether, you submitted nearly 22,000 classifications in just 2 weeks - by far the most rapid rate of classification in the project's history!  Congratulations to our prize-winners: Beth Smith, Reece Fowler and Julia Wilkinson.  Each of them will receive a fabulous new Browning Command Ops Pro camera trap, courtesy of the generous support of NatureSpy!  Thanks, also, to everyone else who contributed classifications.  We hope you've enjoyed participating in the project.  Please do carry on; every classification helps us to make sense of the data and to understand - as the project grows - how we can have confidence in what is being spotted in different parts of the country.  Watch this news page for more initiatives coming soon ... 

Competition update

23-04-2019

Despite heroic levels of classifications over the last 2 weeks, the prize-winning photos still haven't been found!  The odds are now pretty high that someone will find them soon.  Keep up the good work and let us know if you find one.  Remember, if you find one, save it to your local device, classify it as “Other” and email it to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  As below (see article from the 10th of April), the first three different Spotters to find one will win a camera trap!

Why aren't my stats updating?!

11-04-2019

The Spotter homepage tells you how many image sequences you've classified.  Some of you have noticed that it's rather slow to update after you've been spotting.  Don't worry: the system is registering your efforts.  However, last week, we had some site performance issues and we reduced the frequency with which statistics were updated (to once per day).  We think we've identified the problem, so we'll be starting slowly to restore the frequency of calculations again.  In the meantime, sorry for the frustration - but check back the following day to make sure that your statistics have all updated.

Easter competition

10-04-2019

Following the success of our Christmas competition, we are excited to announce that we are now running an Easter spotting competition! Starting today (Wednesday the 10th of April), we will be adding some novelty, Easter-themed pictures into the MammalWeb UK data set. If you find one, save it to your local device, classify it as “Other” and email it to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Everyone who finds one will get an honourable mention when we announce the results. We are particularly grateful to our friends at NatureSpy, who have very generously donated three Browning Command Ops Pro camera traps as prizes for this competition. This incredible generosity means that we can offer one of these camera traps as a prize to each of the first three Spotters who send us the novelty Easter photo that they found (up to a limit of one camera per person)! NatureSpy will also be offering discounts on camera traps to MammalWeb participants. Check out their shop here, and watch for further news on how to access the discounts soon!

MammalWeb UK hits 100% classified

10-04-2019

In March, we reached a major milestone. Specifically, for the first time since the MammalWeb UK project began, we reached a point at which every image sequence submitted to the MammalWeb UK project had been classified at least once! This is a great achievement and we’d like to thank everyone who has contributed classifications, as well as Helen, whose tireless work on the web platform has made Spotting such an effortless (and, we think, addictive) process!

Although MammalWeb UK is now just one of the projects on the site, it remains the project to which most people contribute data. At the point when all sequences had been classified at least once, it included almost 80,000 sequences from over 300 sites. As you can see from the detailed map (in which the MammalWeb UK sites are shown in red, overlying blue sites from other projects), survey efforts remain dominated by sites in the North East of England, where the project began. Zooming out to the UK map, however, you can see that MammalWeb UK is continuing to expand. If you are, or know, a camera trapper elsewhere in the country, please do upload your camera trap photos/encourage others to do so. This way we can continue to expand our coverage, and consequently learn more about mammal ecology across the UK.

At the point at which all image sequences had been classified at least once, the data suggest that about 62% of the sequences contained identifiable animal life. So, what do they contain? As you can see from the graph on the left below, the most frequently sighted animal is the grey squirrel which, as many of you will know, is an invasive non-native species. Nevertheless, there are a number of native species that appear frequently, including roe deer in about 1 in every 12 sequences you view, and badger or red fox in about 1 in 18 sequences. Bear in mind that these statistics are based on what species people have said are in sequences. As we get more classifications per sequence and more conviction regarding what is pictured, this could change.

A more intriguing picture arises when we consider the number of sites at which different species have been photographed (see graph on the right below). This suggests that roe deer and red fox are actually more geographically widespread in our data than are grey squirrels. This probably arises because they are more wide-ranging: when grey squirrels are active around a camera, they are usually very busy, generating lots of image sequences; roe deer and red foxes turn up at more cameras – but don’t linger by the camera for so long.

As contributors are increasingly trapping in other parts of the country, these patterns will almost certainly change. We have recently seen muntjac in the data set from a site in Worcestershire, as well as fallow deer from a site in South Wales. Who knows what other species we might see as the project continues to expand?