What scat is that ?

[Giddy_up]

I'll stick with something that "oinks"
G_U


"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[bernieq]

What's the prize ?

Hmmm, OK - for eack person who correctly identify the culprit, I'll give you a gpx (or kml if you prefer) of the entire Larapinta Trail (Redbank Gorge to Alice Springs). It looks pretty cool in GoogleEarth.

Closes Wednesday (tomorrow) night.

[GD4Up]

What's the prize ?

Hmmm, OK - for eack person who correctly identify the culprit, I'll give you a gpx (or kml if you prefer) of the entire Larapinta Trail (Redbank Gorge to Alice Springs). It looks pretty cool in GoogleEarth.

Closes Wednesday (tomorrow) night.

That's a better prize than winning the correctly identified scat itself

[Onestepmore]

Haha, will just have to wait until tomorrow evening. After a good bushwalk with my visiting mother from Tassie, wil be in need of a good glass of wine, and all shall be revealed.
I'll guess fox
I really have no idea

[bernieq]

That's a better prize than winning the correctly identified scat itself

Very droll :))

I did contemplate offering the scat as the prize but I thought AusPost might object (and I might have been mailing multiple packages) - a gpx file is a bit easier to distribute.

[puredingo]

Well I don't know what any of the things you are offering for a prize actually are but that wont stop me from having a crack...

Wallaby?

[bernieq]

Well I don't know what any of the things you are offering for a prize actually are ...

Sorry, puredingo, one makes assumptions ….

GoogleEarth is a free program that you can download onto a computer – it provides access to satellite images of (virtually) the entire planet. A kml file is a dataset that identifies a particular part of the planet. In this case, it draws a line (the track) on the images covering the central Australian Larapinta Trail.

The gpx file is essentially the same thing but loads onto a GPS so you can use it for navigation on the ground. Just to confuse the story, some GPSs can also use kml files … and gpx files can also be loaded onto GoogleEarth !

I hope that clears it all up :))

[Happy Pirate]

Emu. (Cylindrical variant).
I knew my new scat book would come in handy one day.
Steve

[Giddy_up]

Emu. (Cylindrical variant).
I knew my new scat book would come in handy one day.
Steve

That's a bit different. Would it not have white in it which represents the urine component of bird and reptile waste as they only have a cloaca?

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[Happy Pirate]

No there's no white residue in Emu scats, something to do with their diet perhaps. Most emu poo is conical or cow-pat shaped but some apparently is cylindrical.
Still only a guess of course.

Emu. (Cylindrical variant).
I knew my new scat book would come in handy one day.
Steve

That's a bit different. Would it not have white in it which represents the urine component of bird and reptile waste as they only have a cloaca?

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[Giddy_up]

Very interesting, I thought all bird poo had urea in it, hence the white component. Good guess though.



"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[Nuts]

We had emus, I'm trying to recall if they paused to do the business (they weren't the most patient). What you obviously have here is a pausing species ( )

[Giddy_up]

I'm sure going to know my s%#€t by the end of this!!!!!!


"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[bernieq]

Our staff have said it looks like Emu to me – the seeds are pretty typical. Normally it’s a bit more ‘patty’-like, this one is a bit more solid but not impossible.

Emu it is.
What I've seen before has been mounded, almost conical, but a similar colour, consistency and seed content. What surprised me was the shape, size and volume of one 'sitting'.

So, if you want it, Happy Pirate, PM me with your email address and I'll send you my .gpx and .kml of the Larapinta Trail.

[Giddy_up]

I guess they don't call them "super chooks" for nothing!!!!!!!!!


"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"

[Happy Pirate]

Our staff have said it looks like Emu to me – the seeds are pretty typical. Normally it’s a bit more ‘patty’-like, this one is a bit more solid but not impossible.

Emu it is.
What I've seen before has been mounded, almost conical, but a similar colour, consistency and seed content. What surprised me was the shape, size and volume of one 'sitting'.

So, if you want it, Happy Pirate, PM me with your email address and I'll send you my .gpx and .kml of the Larapinta Trail.

I guess that means I know my shlt.

[Happy Pirate]

Our staff have said it looks like Emu to me – the seeds are pretty typical. Normally it’s a bit more ‘patty’-like, this one is a bit more solid but not impossible.

Emu it is.
What I've seen before has been mounded, almost conical, but a similar colour, consistency and seed content. What surprised me was the shape, size and volume of one 'sitting'.

So, if you want it, Happy Pirate, PM me with your email address and I'll send you my .gpx and .kml of the Larapinta Trail.

Often in the Wimmera and Gramps you can tell Emu because they go mad for a certain purple flower during spring. Then their scats are messy and quite purple.

[Happy Pirate]

I'd suggest reading the book "Tracks, scats and other traces" by Barbara Trigg. If the book doesn't help, she used to offer an identification serivce for a very reasonable fee (maybe a few dollars per sample). Researchers, outdoors people, budding zoologists etc would send her scats, hair samples, photos of footprints etc and she would identify them. She used to be based down on the NSW/Vic border near the coast, maybe Genoa or Mallacoota.
Clarence

Awesome book. It lives in the bottom of my pack.

[bernieq]

PM received and files emailed - thanks for all the suggestions.

Larapinta Trail

[Happy Pirate]

Awesome!
I'd better go and ground-truth the accuracy!
Any excuse
Steve

[Franco]

Unlike all other birds the ratite family (emus,ostriches...) secretes urine separately from their faeces.

[Onestepmore]

Good *&%$#! guys! That was fun.

Happy Pirate - is that the Scat ID book you have - the one mentioned by Barbara Trigg? And grats

[Happy Pirate]

Yes. Barbara Trigg's scat book is awesome. It doesn't show cylindrical Emu poo though. That came at the suggestion of a fellow scatologist.

[sambar358]

I'm going with feral pig droppings ....certainly not any sort of deer.

Deer pellets are quite small considering the size of the animal...red or a sambar pellets are generally about the size of jelly beans and are of uniform size, concave at one end and with a small point at the other (which stops their bum from slamming shut). On deer in our National Parks....actually the deer were in those areas BEFORE the parks were declared....so before we had the Grampians and Alpine NP's these areas were just public land....the deer have been there for 150+ years....so the deer haven't "intruded into the NP's" as Steve puts it...quite the opposite actually.

For those who walk in the mountains and see pellet groups like these......deer.....obviously nothing like the scat that is the subject of this post. Cheers

sambar358

[Happy Pirate]

I'm going with feral pig droppings ....certainly not any sort of deer.

Deer pellets are quite small considering the size of the animal...red or a sambar pellets are generally about the size of jelly beans and are of uniform size, concave at one end and with a small point at the other (which stops their bum from slamming shut). On deer in our National Parks....actually the deer were in those areas BEFORE the parks were declared....so before we had the Grampians and Alpine NP's these areas were just public land....the deer have been there for 150+ years....so the deer haven't "intruded into the NP's" as Steve puts it...quite the opposite actually.

For those who walk in the mountains and see pellet groups like these......deer.....obviously nothing like the scat that is the subject of this post. Cheers

sambar358

Sambar
I'm guessing you're a hunter by your name and attitude? And also your familiarity with deer poo? I'm guessing pigs are not your specialty tho'.
Check out the previous post for the answer to the question.
Thanks for the pics of deer scats - its worth getting to know these in regions like the Gramps. They are definitely a grassivore closer to Wallaby than Pig or Emu.

"the deer have been there for 150+ years....so the deer haven't "intruded into the NP's" as Steve puts it...quite the opposite actually"

Nowhere did I state or infer that feral animals have intruded into feral free National Parks . I know NPs are an artifice that do not describe the local spatial and temporal ecology and that feral animals often preceded reserves. My point was that RECREATIONAL hunting is often not a valid control tool, as it's primary objective is the maintenance of it's own recreational capacity whereas complete feral removal has a clearly defined finite time-span.
What I said was "the hunting lobby PROMOTES feral animal intrusion into National Parks".
I stand by this statement by my own personal anecdotal experience of talking to hunters who deliberately maintain feral animal populations by targeting only adult male specimens.
Also by the attitudes of Tas and Vic governments who manage Deer and Trout populations, more closely than native species, to ensure the perpetual maintenance of these invasive species.

cheers
Steve

[corvus]

This thread has been interesting as I pick up a variety of scats in our front and back yard,including Brushtail and Ringtail Possum,Bandicoot and Pademelon (Wallaby) ,this is in suburban Devonport albeit very close to a green belt with a busy street between.
Does make you wonder eh!!
corvus

[Happy Pirate]

This thread has been interesting as I pick up a variety of scats in our front and back yard,including Brushtail and Ringtail Possum,Bandicoot and Pademelon (Wallaby) ,this is in suburban Devonport albeit very close to a green belt with a busy street between.
Does make you wonder eh!!
corvus

Corvus:
all the scat you mention are well documented native species. None are in dispute as far as I am aware.
I agree that 'scatology' is an interesting subject and it is fascinating to sift through poo 'left-overs' to discern who visited you last night.
Unfortunately this discussion has flummoxed down into baser issues of feral species management.
cheers
S

[corvus]

Sorry did not realise that you were into *&%$#! in a big way just thought I would contribute some more *&%$#!
corvus

[Happy Pirate]

Sorry did not realise that you were into *&%$#! in a big way just thought I would contribute some more *&%$#!
corvus

All *&%$#! contributions gratefully received.
As far as I'm aware Bullsh*t has never been an exact science!
cheers
Steve

[Nuts]

Emu droppings iv'e seen in WA are often like that, long and full of less digestible seed... and there are some Huge birds.
Of course the testing method here is not exactly definitive. An educated guess, yes, but could still be wrong?