CAROLYN’S DAILY POSTS: 2011
NEW WORDS: SPOOR, PUG (TIGER)
It’s deplorable what happened in Zanesville, Ohio, where over fifty exotic animals, including lions and tigers, had to be killed to protect human life.
In the process of writing a post, Lions and Tigers in Ohio????, I came across two unfamiliar words: spoor and pug. Curious, I just had to look up their meanings.
Spoor is any sign of a creature. Spoor includes track, trail and droppings. Spoor is useful for discovering or surveying what types of animals live in an area, or in animal tracking. Generally droppings can be referred to as scat.*
At least I am familiar with the word scat. We find deer and bear scat on our property quite frequently—deer, however, more than bear.
The name of any animals’ paw prints are called spoor.
A second source confirmed the above: n. The track or trail of an animal, especially a wild animal. V. spoored, spoor-ing,spoors To track (an animal) by following its spoor or to engage in such tracking.**
A pug (n.) is a footprint, esp. of a game animal or (v.) to track (esp. game) by following footprints or another spoor.***
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since the post was about lions and tigers I followed up my research by checking out tiger pugs. A tiger’s paw consists of a pad and four toes. The pad is 3-lobed at the rear end.
There is a fifth toe commonly called the dew claw, which is placed high on the front limbs only, is retractable, is part of the tiger’s weaponry, and which ordinarily, it does not touch the ground..
Since front pugs are used for killing prey, injuries if any, are sustained on front paws. Wherever existing, these may be visible on front pugmarks and may serve as a conclusive identification feature of a specific animal.
Tiger pugmarks are found on/in
- Dusty or damp ground.
- Forest paths and roads.
- Animal trails.
- River and stream beds.
- Near water holes.
- Dry nala beds and in the vicinity of natural salt licks.
So what are nala beds? Apparently they are a shallow watercourse with sandy bed.*****
And so, I end my exploration of animal life for today. To read the post that lead me to increase my vocabulary by two—no, three—words, click on Lions and Tigers in Ohio????
SOURCES
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoor_(animal)
**http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spoor
***http://dictionary.infoplease.com/pug
****http://assets.wwfindia.org/downloads/reading_pugmarks.pdf
***** http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?pageid=4388
~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADDITIONAL READING:
WHAT RIGHTS DO CATS HAVE, I ASK
BEAR CARNIVAL IN CONNELLSVILLE, PA.
Carolyn's Daily Posts: 2011 
Leave a comment