TRAFFIC AND wildlife do not mix. Anyone who keeps an eye on the verges while driving along a country road knows that. But such carnage does bring zoologists an opportunity. Counting roadkills is a rough and ready way of sampling local animal populations, and is the basis of so-called citizen-science endeavours such as Project Splatter, in Britain, in which members of the public report what they have found dead on the road, and where.
Once a week, for six months, Mr Medrano Vizcaíno and Dr Espinosa surveyed three 33km segments of roads weaving in and around tropical forests and mountains near the Ecuadorian national parks of Cayambe Coca and Sumaco Napo-Galeras. Every time they came across a dead animal they stopped, photographed it, noted its GPS co-ordinates and identified it as accurately as possible.
More extraordinary than this, among the 88 reptiles seen by Mr Medrano Vizcaíno and Dr Espinosa, one was a snake previously unknown to science. They also found an example of the northern tiger cat, a species thought to be on the brink of extinction.
when i was a kid was so much roadkill. now the wildlife diversity mostly gone
What is the opposite statistical effect of 'survivor bias'?
'almost completely elusive' = 'not good at eluding cars'
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