March 22. There’s an aspect of behavior observations I haven’t mentioned yet. If your zebra poops while you are observing it, you try to remember where this happened. Why? So that after you finish the observation you can run out, scoop it up, and bag it in a plastic baggy. Zebra poop is analyzed for parasites, and that’s what we did this morning.

Using samples we’d collected earlier in the week, we made a solution of zebra poop and water, twirled it around in a hand-cranked centrifuge, and then prepared special slides which we looked at under the microscope. The slides we used are very thick and they have two hollow spaces into which the solution is placed. There is a grid over each opening which divides it into several rows. As we view the slide under the microscope, we count and record the number of parasites in each row. There are different types of parasites to look for and Joseph gave us pictures of them to help us identify the different kinds.

It is normal to find some parasites in a zebra’s system, but certain types can prove fatal, or very high numbers can indicate a problem. Plains zebras tend to have more parasites than Grevy’s for some reason. Most of our zebras today appeared to be pretty healthy from what we observed. So that’s the scoop on poop!