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How to not get trampled by an angry elephant

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


What sort of nature photographer lies down in front of an enraged bull elephant?

How about the little remote-control kind? Meet BeetleCam:

Wildlife photographers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas modified an RC car by beefing up the motor to support a Canon 400D camera and flash units. An ingenious solution to the old safari nuisance of being eaten by lions and trampled by buffalo. It's not without its problems, though:


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...we were buoyed with optimism and decided to make our second subjects lions. In hindsight this was a foolish idea; BeetleCam was promptly mauled, and carried off into the bush. A long recovery mission ensued and we were extremely lucky to retrieve an intact memory card from the mangled Canon 400D body.

Still, better a mangled camera than a mangled photographer. Check out the BeetleCam gallery, and the video teaser below.

For updates on the BeetleCam project, you can follow the Burrard-Lucas brothers on twitter (http://twitter.com/willbl) and facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BLphotography).

Alex Wild is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies the evolutionary history of ants. In 2003 he founded a photography business as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work, and his natural history photographs appear in numerous museums, books and media outlets.

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