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Hi! We are Nick and Valerie Wisniewski on behalf of expertvillage.com. We are here to
talk about animal tracks and for information; you can visit our website at walnuthilltracking.com.
When looking at animal tracks it is important to understand foot morphology. Foot morphology
is the structure of an animal’s foot. Knowing the structure of an animal’s foot will help
you identify the t racks of the animal that made the track on the ground. Some animals
have two toes on their feet. For example, the moose that Valerie is showing here has
to two toes on both the front foot and hind foot. This is also true for the white tail
deer which is closely related to the moose. Some other animals may have four toes on their
feet. For example, the bobcat which we often track has four toes on its front foot and
four toes on its hind foot. This is also a characteristic of members of the dog family
such as the eastern coyote, the red fox and the gray fox. Many other animals have five
toes on both their front feet and their hind feet. For example, the river otter is a large
member of the weasel family. The weasel’s have five toes on both the fronts and the
hind. There is a large group of animals called the rodents that have five toes on their hind
feet and four toes on their front feet. Knowing the number of toes that the animal has will
help you greatly simplify your choices in identifying the tracks on the ground.