Serengeti Selfie

[telophase]

I got one of my rewards for backing the Snapshot Serengeti Indiegogo fundraiser today. It was the Serengeti Selfie, in which you sent them a photo of yourself and they took a picture of it near one of the lion prides they study. :) I took a slight advantage of it and sent two photos made into one, because I don't have any pictures of Mom and Dad together in the Serengeti, as one or the other of them was always behind the camera.





This particular pride, the Mukoma Gypsies, is not all that far from Seronera, where we used to live, so it's entirely possible I've been to this area before. :) This is from the email that accompanied the picture:

The Mukoma Gypsies are one of our largest and most visible prides; their strength in numbers makes them especially adept at hunting buffalo. You can see a map of their territory in relation to the rest of the study area at http://tinyurl.com/MukomaGypsies

It took us a little while to figure out how to take these selfies properly. Although the lions we monitor are very familiar with our vehicles, they aren't used to seeing us sticking things outside of the car -- especially not giant sheets of paper blowing in the wind! With a little experimentation, though, we were able to get the photos in place without causing too much alarm, allowing us to capture your photos and the lions engaged in their favorite activity: resting.