Animal Tracks Mystery Cache

[NOTE: the track graphic below may be slow to load.] This is a log only cache. It's not at the listed coordinates. Bring a pen that'll write on Tyvek. The log is hidden! Please tell us what tracks you identified on the way to the find. About the cache, don't worry, the parents always return.

You'll have to track down this geocache by matching an animal track with the type of creature (all found in Iowa) that made it. An animal appears when a track image is clicked; it is not the one that made that track however! Unless you have a field guide to animal tracks it would be best to use Google to hunt for an animal track guide. The hint below may help speed that process up. Also, if you do not recognize a mammal, you can look for it in the "Visual Search" file available at this great website, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - North American Mammals.

Each track and animal has a unique number assigned by its position in the 4 x 4 table. The format is {row number column number}. E.g. the upper left track (and the animal that pops up at that same position) is number 11; one over from it is 12; one below it is 21 and so on. See: this for example. If on the website page for this cache, you don't see a 4 row x 4 column format, then the resolution on your screen is not set high enough. You will use these grid positions in several equations below to come up with missing numbers in the latitude and longitude of the geocache. Let’s say that the animal that made the track in grid position 11 was the skunk (grid position 13). If that were true then, the first equation used to determine the cache coordinate would begin like this (you would insert the 13):

A = (11 + 13 + 12 + _ _ – 4) ÷ 12

If the above description is not enough try looking at this.

The equations for the latitude follow. The blank spaces need to be filled in with the row-column number of the animal that made the track designated by the grid position immediately to its left. The letters (A – D) represent the unknown numbers for this latitude:

42 2A.BCD

A = (11 + _ _ + 12 + _ _ – 4) ÷ 12

B = (13 + _ _ + 14 + _ _ – 1) ÷ 25

C = (21 + _ _ + 22 + _ _ - 5) ÷ 13

D = (23 + _ _ + 24 +_ _– 3) ÷ 15

The equations for the longitude follow. The blank spaces need to be filled in with the row-column number of the animal that made the track designated by the grid position immediately to its left. The letters (E – H) represent the unknown numbers for this longitude:

-92 2E.FGH

E = (31 + _ _ + 32 + _ _- 3) ÷ 23

F = (33 + _ _ + 34 + _ _) ÷ 34

G = (41 + _ _ + 42 + _ _) ÷ 25

H = (43 +_ _ + 44 + _ _) ÷ 19

Good luck!

-it