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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Rabbit or Squirrel- Part 1: Take a Guess


Last year, for some reason, there were a lot more good animal tracks here to show you. But there is one easy one that several of you wanted to see more of, and that is the rabbit. Here, that would be the Eastern Cottontail Rabbit. And Ratty has been showing you some squirrel tracks. So I thought I'd talk about rabbits and squirrels.

Today I'm just posting a silly little game. This is called "take a guess." If you think you can really tell the difference, so much the better. Tell me why. Two of these pictures are rabbit tracks and two are squirrel. Just put in a comment which you think is which! Tomorrow we'll discuss the answers.

tracks1.

tracks2.

tracks3.

tracks4.

Have fun!


See Today Let's Talk Squirrels
See The Shining Path


9 comments:

RNSANE said...

I think 1,3, and 4 are rabbit tracks...because you can see the long pad of the rear feet and the smaller front pads.

Joanne Olivieri said...

Just a guess but it looks to me like 2 and three are squirrel tracks. Cool shots. Ratty will know this at first glance :)

rainfield61 said...

My wild guess: 1 and 4 are belonged to a rabbit.

bemused26 said...

I don't really know but I think number 3 may be a squirrel- purely because they look more like 'hand' prints rather than paws and I think squirrels have hands (well i call them hands because that's what they look like!)

Ann said...

I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. #2 I though was maybe a squirrel maybe 3 also and 1 and 4 rabbit.

John | Daily Photo Gallery said...

1 and 4 are rabbits. 2 and 3 are squirrels :-)

Rick (Ratty) said...

This is an excellent game!

1. Squirrel
2. Rabbit
3. Rabbit
4. Squirrel

I can tell you why. The tracks in the front are actually the back feet for both creatures, because of their hopping walk. So their front feet are the tracks in the back. Squirrels front feet land side by side, while a rabbits front feet land at a diagonal angle or inline with each other.

This is a really fun post. I had to resist writing even more about this subject. I hope I didn't get them backwards in my haste. :)

Sharkbytes said...

Most of you did well with alike and different. I'll leave it at that... see the next post for answers and discussion. Thanks for playing!

Sharkbytes said...

AHA! Ratty was posting his answers at the same time as I was commenting in general. He's been chasing those squirrels around the forest so long that there was no fooling him! Great job, Mr. Rat.