Thursday, March 1, 2018

3.5 million classifications; 9,800 volunteers; 2,200 hours of video footage annotated!

Chimp&See reached yet another milestone: together, we made 3.5 million classifications and annotated with this more than 500,000 video clips! This huge effort helped the science team to get to date through 2,200 hours of footage – annotate all animals and behaviors seen in a video clip, tag to the species level, and identify almost 300 unique chimpanzees (and some leopards) across all sites.


We already completed 13 research sites and are more than halfway through the current one “Green Snowflake” that already by now topped all other sites in the number of chimpanzee videos found. Matching the chimps is an ongoing challenge, but we already identified several members of this community and could watch it grow as there are at least three newborn infants clinging to their mothers’ belly virtually from one month to the other.

At this beautiful Eastern African site, we could see two new (to us) behaviors as the chimps and other species spend extended periods eating decaying mineral-rich wood and also clay or soil. You can have lots of fun watching bigger groups of monkeys and chimps interacting with each other and competing for the best place to feed. Their huge enthusiasm for “wood eating” can be seen in watching the “feeding tree” practically disappear in just months.

The same tree getting dismantled on camera in just months.

Thank you for the continuous support of the project and your enthusiasm about chimps and African wildlife in general. Come over to Chimp&See and help us classify even more videos!