10 Funny Animal Photos Captured By Camera Traps

In Animals by Emily, May 3, 2016

In a new book, Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature, out this month, Roland Kays takes us inside the world of camera traps, compiling over 600 photographs from camera traps set up by individuals and research groups around the world. Kays, as the director of the Biodiversity Laboratory at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, is aware of how important camera traps are for researchers trying to keep track of elusive wildlife populations.

Camera traps can help researchers and citizen scientists monitor animal populations, capture evidence of endangered creatures, and count individual species from a distance.

They can also capture some silly, unguarded moments. Here are 10 amusing photos from the book.

1.) Pooping bear

This bear has surely found a great location to do number 2.

10 funny animal photos captured by camera traps

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature eMammal

2.) Beware kitty

An owl snatches a cat from the ground, not knowing that it is actually a robot. Researchers later found the robocat nearby, relatively unscathed.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature Roland Kays

3.) Say what now?

These long-tailed macaques aren’t startled by the camera trap so much as suspicious. Many macaque populations are used to humans and their technology, and are known for begging for handouts at tourist sites.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature Benoit Goossens

4.) I’m hungry

A vampire bat grabs a bite on the rear end of a sleeping cow. Vampire bats use cattle as a main source of food, much to the annoyance of local ranchers in Panama, where this photo was taken.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature Helen Esser, Yorick Liefting, Patrick Jansen/Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

5.) Just stretching

A bear looks super cool casually leaning against a tree.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature eMammal

6.) I…ugh…what?

A Jaguarundi, a kind of cat, is totally dumbfounded by this camera set up in Suriname.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature TEAM Network, Central Suriname site

7.) Playing fetch

A young wolf carries a stick back towards the den, just like a domesticated dog would.

Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature Parks Canada/Banff National Park

8.) Midnight flight

This poor deer was just trying to eat some apples as a nighttime snack. But then, out of nowhere, a flying squirrel decides to photobomb the moment, and a camera flash only adds to the mayhem.