TRACKING LITERATURE
The Tracking Literature library gathers research on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, together with related fields such as human tracking, forensics, ichnology and taphonomy. Behaviour and natural history papers are here even when they never mention tracking, because understanding behaviour matters to trackers.
Search every field, or narrow the list with the filters. Each paper has its own page with a synopsis, keywords and the full citation. Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF; otherwise the page links to the publisher or a legal free copy.
1977Publisher link
Techniques for trapping and tracking stoats (Mustela erminea); a review, and a new system
How do you study an animal that is small, fast, shy and out at night? In 1977, Carolyn King and R. L. Edgar reviewed the ways to trap and track stoats in New Zealand and introduced a footprint tunnel with a chemical ink that leaves permanent prints on paper. They show how footprints, live-traps and kill-traps together can reveal where stoats live, how they move and what they eat.
1977Publisher link
The Ethno-biology of the !Xo Bushmen. Knowledge on the Behaviour of Cloven-hoofed Animals (Antelopes and Warthog)
Why does a gemsbok feel the ground with its lips before lying down, and how can you tell a sleeping antelope from a dozing one? In this 1977 paper, !Xo Bushmen of the Kalahari share with H.J. Heinz their detailed knowledge of eight antelopes and the warthog, from the calls mothers use to bring their young out of hiding to the way split herds find each other again by following spoor. The paper shows knowledge that goes far beyond what hunting alone requires.
1977Publisher link
The Use of Urine Marking in the Scavenging Behavior of the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)
Why does a red fox urine mark up to 70 times an hour while scavenging? In a set of clever field experiments with wild foxes in Canada, J. David Henry showed that foxes mark scraps and empty caches as a “nothing left here” note, and that both the marker and other foxes then skip those spots in a second or two. It is a classic study of what one of the most common signs on the trail may mean to the animals themselves.
1976PDF available
Estimating Ungulate Numbers in a Forest by Track Counts
Can you count deer and wild boar by their tracks instead of sending a line of people through the forest? Comparing drive counts with track counts across five forest districts in the early 1970s, this study found that the answer depended on the species: tracking around blocks worked best for red deer, and counting tracks along transects showed promise for roe deer and wild boar. The catch, then as now, is knowing how far animals travel each day.
1976Publisher link
Mammalian Scent Gland Marking and Social Behavior
Why does a pronghorn rub his face on grass along his territory’s edge, and why does a ground squirrel greet its family with a kiss? This classic 1976 review pulls together what was known about mammals marking their world with scent glands. Marks did not keep intruders out, but they told others who lived there, their sex and status, and helped owners win fights on home ground.
1975PDF available
Digestive Adaptations of Phainopepla nitens Associated with the Eating of Mistletoe Berries
How does a small desert bird live on mistletoe berries? Phainopeplas swallow the berries whole, and their tiny gizzard squeezes the seed and pulp out of each skin, saving the skins up and passing them later as a neat packet. A berry goes through the bird in about half an hour, the seed still whole and ready to stick to a new host tree.
1975Publisher link
Scent-marking in wolves
How does a wolf know whose land they are standing on? Following radio-tagged packs through Minnesota snow for three winters, researchers counted 1006 possible scent marks along 240 km of tracks and found wolf territories shaped like an olfactory bowl, with the heaviest marking along the borders. Their tracks showed packs turning back where their neighbours’ marks began, even abandoning a wounded deer.
1974Publisher link
A Field Guide to Animal Tracks
A jackrabbit dodging one coyote in the Wyoming snow, until a second coyote closes in from up the hill: Olaus Murie read stories like this in tracks all his life. His classic Peterson field guide covers the tracks and signs of North America’s mammals, plus birds, reptiles and insects, drawn from his own plaster casts and field sketches. He also shows how to cast tracks, even in snow, and admits honestly where signs cannot be told apart.
1974Publisher link
Observational Study of Behavior: Sampling Methods
Whenever we watch animals, we choose what to record, and that choice decides which questions the data can answer. In this classic guide, Jeanne Altmann compares seven ways of sampling behaviour, from informal field notes to focal-animal and scan sampling, and shows how each can quietly bias the results. Half a century on, it is still the starting point for anyone planning to watch animals systematically.
1974PDF available
Scent Marking in the Binturong, Arctictis binturong
How does a shaggy, tree-climbing binturong leave its scent? Watching a zoo pair, Devra Kleiman saw them hang upside down like sloths to drag their scent gland along a limb, and shuffle their heels in their own urine before carrying it elsewhere. Disturbance, strange smells and changes in the female’s hormones all set off bursts of marking.
1974Publisher link
Selection of Winter Habitat by Bobcats (Lynx rufus) on the Quabbin Reservation, Massachusetts
Following bobcat trails through two Massachusetts winters, a researcher read where the cats rested, stalked bedded deer, cached their kills and hunted hares. The tracks showed bobcats favouring roads, cliffs, spruce plantations and hemlock stands, walking on logs and in deer trails to avoid deep snow, and sometimes hunting even with a fresh deer cached nearby.
1974Publisher link
Social Aspects of Wallowing Behaviour in Red Deer Herds
Why would 150 red deer stags all squeeze into one mud wallow when there are plenty of empty ones nearby? Watching deer on a high alpine pasture and in Black Forest enclosures, two researchers from the University of Freiburg found that the crowded wallow becomes a stage where rank is shown, with big-antlered stags taking their turn first and young animals learning their place. Mass wallowing may also help bring the herd together to start its day.
1974Publisher link
The Behaviour in Captivity of the African Civet, Civettictis civetta (Schreber)
African civets are shy, solitary and active at night, so who knows how they really behave? By living with two captive pairs and five litters of kittens, Ewer and Wemmer described everything from their dung piles and perfume-gland marks to the careful way they kill snakes and why a mother civet calls her kittens rather than going to them.
1974PDF available
The Behaviour of Ungulates and its Relation to Management: The Papers of an International Symposium held at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 2-5 November 1971. Volume 1
In 1971, ungulate researchers from around the world met in Calgary to share what they knew about how hoofed animals live together. The first volume of their papers covers everything from hiding fawns and fighting displays to rhino dungheaps, hartebeest dung piles and the rubs and scrapes of white-tailed deer. It is a rich, early record of the signs ungulates leave for each other, and for trackers.
1973Publisher link
Gaits in mammals
Why can a rhino gallop when an elephant cannot? Why do camels pace and moose prefer to trot? In this classic 1973 review, Anne Innis Dagg defined the gaits of mammals and showed how weight, back shape, leg length, tails, ancestry and habitat decide how each species moves.
1973Publisher link
Scent Marking in Mammals
Is a scent mark really a “keep out” sign? In this classic 1973 review, Roger Johnson weighed the evidence on why mammals mark with urine, droppings and scent glands, and found little to show that marks keep rivals out. Scent marks seem to do many jobs, from helping an animal feel at home to telling others who it is, and the jobs differ from species to species.
1972Publisher link
Tiger Census in India (Summer 1972)
How do you count an animal you almost never see? In 1972, India ran its first country-wide tiger census by sending forest guards out to trace pugmarks and read other signs during the same week. The author’s own log from the Similipal Hills shows the method in action: tigers confirmed from a skid mark, belly hairs in a porcupine burrow and a barking deer lifted clean off a road, and a “tiger” track that turned out to be a hyena’s.
1971PDF available
Mammalian Scent Marking
Is every scent mark a territory sign? In this classic 1971 review, Katherine Ralls draws on studies of sugar gliders, rabbits, hamsters, marmosets and her own captive duikers to show that mammals mark most when they are dominant and ready to fight, whether or not they hold a territory. Strangers of the same sex, or even their scent, set off bursts of marking.
1970Publisher link
Let Us Count Our Tigers
In 1970, a forester who had tracked and shot man-eating tigers in Orissa, India, made a plea: count the tigers before they are gone. Drawing on decades in the forest, he describes how tigers keep to their territories, how he told seven overlapping tigers apart by their pugmarks, and a near-free “cooperation census” by forest guards and local trackers that counted 326 tigers in 1966.
1970Publisher link
Locomotion in Some East African Viverrids
How does a palm civet get down a tree? Head first, in a series of loops. Filming 12 kinds of Kenyan civets, genets and mongooses frame by frame, M. E. Taylor described how each walks, trots, gallops, climbs, swims and digs, and how their gaits fit their habitats and diets.
About the library
What is the Tracking Literature library?
A searchable collection of research papers on tracks and signs, trailing, and animal behaviour and ecology, gathered by Original Wisdom. Each paper has its own page with a plain-language summary, keywords, the full citation and a link to the paper.
Can I download the papers?
Where a paper is open access, or the authors or publisher have given permission, you can download the PDF from its page. Otherwise the page links to the publisher or to a legal free copy.
Who writes the summaries?
Kersey Lawrence of Original Wisdom summarises each paper: what the researchers did, found and concluded, how tracking was used, who did the tracking, and what it means for trackers.
How do I find papers on one species or place?
Type it in the search box, which searches every field including scientific names, or tick it in the Species or Region filter. Filters combine, so you can narrow the list to, for example, leopard papers from Botswana.
How should I cite a paper or a summary?
Each paper page gives the full citation and DOI of the original paper, and a ready-made citation for Original Wisdom's summary of it.