Scientific value of photography

We as photographers are often accused of providing no real additions to scientific knowledge regarding birds for example.
Well - I do not agree.
We all know that a green woody has a 5 inch tongue. It is sticky and the bird inserts it down the ant gallery tunnels to get at its main item of food - ants and eggs etc.. They have a special storeage space for the long tongue in their skull which is unique in these birds..

Since photographing these birds this week eating apples, I have noticed that the toungue does not appear at all..
My pics prove that the green Woody can keep its toungue out
of the way when its eating apples, or when it doesn't need it
!So there you are! Bet you didn't know that !!
JohnR

Hi John,

That storage space also helps as a shock absorber when the bird is hammering in other species and when the Green is digging in hard mud and ant hills. Otherwise it is only by contracting the branchio-mandibularis muscles and extends the hyoid apparatus that it sticks it's tongue out. It also has some other muscles that it uses to move the tongue from side-side.. There has been long debates about the possible evolution/creation of the woodpeckers bill/tongue..

I have to agree with you.. we learn so much about our subjects when we observe them through the lens and you highlight just that very fact. I have learnt so much about some of the herpetofauna that i have photographed over the years and it's that intimacy with the subject and being able to use that to improve our 'field-craft' that enables us to improve our own photography.. I am first and foremost a scientist before my photography and my photography has developed as I learn more about the natural world..

A very good point raised..

Brett

Thanks Brett
You have explained it a little better than I maybe ! The point I was trying to make is that the bird can determine how it uses the tongue structure according to conditions prevailing at the time. If we could keep ours out the way in a similar fashion we could eat oranges without peeling them maybe ??
Cheers
John

I guess same goes for Ant Eaters and Echidnas etc.. They can choose to 'hoover' as well as lick up their prey items.. I think the Anteater has a tongue that is about 60cm...!

Brett

Personally, I dispute the claim that photography adds nothing to science. As a scientist (sharing an office with Brett by the way), I use photography a lot. I am attaching a belly pattern from a great crested newt. It is not the most exciting photograph that has ever been posted on here, but you can gather a lot of scientifically useful information from it. Each belly pattern is unique to an individual, so that over time you can build up ideas of population size, survival, migration rates and maximum age amongst other things. The maximum age of a great crested newt in the wild is about 10-12 years. We would not know that without photography.

A colleague of mine, Dr Matt Linkie, discovered a rare bird, the Sumatran ground cuckoo, last recorded some 81 years earlier, by means of a camera trap. Without photography he would probably have had to shoot this extremely rare bird for the record to be scientifically valid. As it was, he got a picture that was used in scientific publications and birdwatching magazines around the world.

Photography adds nothing to science? Nonsense. Whether photographers add anything to science, there's another whole debate.


David

Hi John,

My professional photography serves science and scientists, with a specialism in high macro photography, my work is used in research and scientific publication. Often a specimen (usually a type) cannot be sent out on loan so they rely on us to produce photographs showing particular ornamentation and features to a precise magnification that an external scientist can work with as well as if they had the original specimen.

Photography often records little known or rare occurrencies either of behaviour or a species believed to be endangered or extinct as David mentions, so I too believe photography plays a very important role in science.

Phil

Hi John I agree with your statement. Myself I started off very keen in Nature in all aspects but in an amature basis. Later on I took up photography and spending lots of time in hides etc it is amazing the new information that I have picked up about the natural world.

Interesting
David- I worked on Great crested newts doing exactly the same thing as you ! - I started in 1970 and did it for 6 years. It was done for my senior warden thesis for the Nature Conservancy at Castor hanglands NNR.
Amazing ! I'll E mail you.
Cheers
JohnR

Hi John,

You might also like to know that the use of photo ID for a number of species has been going on for years too.. I can think of a few examples such as Grass snake belly patterns, Adder head patters, Slow-worm chin patterns, GCN belly patterns, Elephant ears, Gorilla nose prints, Seal pelage, Tiger & Zebra stripes, Hunting dogs, Cetacean scars and dorsal fin shapes and many many more.. So from a scientific point of view photography plays a key role..

You might also be interested to read that ID of Great crested newts has expanded over the years from simples belly pattern sketches, to polaroids and film, to photocopying..! Yes newts have been placed on the photocopier..! and now onto digital technology so they can be ID'd in the field..

Did you know that you can sex an Adder by the colour of it's rostral scales and pre-nasal shields.. So with the aid of photography it's easy enough to sex them in-situ and from a distance without disturbing them, especially when sexual dimorphism is not so apparent from the 'text-book' point of view..

Brett

or in laymans terms....

scientists show their work to each other, and none one else understands it, and photographers show their work to people who don't understand scinetists....

This thread reminded me of Eadweard Muybridge 1830 - 1904 a British photographer commissioned to prove scientifically whether or not all four of a horse's hooves left the ground at the same time during the gallop.

I'm pretty sure this image is out of copyright.

Cheers

Terry