Here’s a wildlife quiz — what are these footprints all over the posters advertising a U.N. wildlife conference in the Hague?
Along with many delegates, I have been puzzling over some of them for days. Is the one at the top the print of a yeti or an abominable snowman that some people say you risk running into high in the Himalayas?![]()
And the one on the bottom, joke some delegates at the 171-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, shows the leaves from a marijuana plant — the drug is sold legally in the Netherlands in coffee shops.
Pretty much everyone guessed the second one from the top is a human foot but even wildlife experts were a bit uncertain about some of the others - a gorilla? a frog? a tiger?
So I got in touch with Frederique Hermie, spokeswoman of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. She in turn got in touch with the designer of the poster, who says they are, from the bottom up:
Tropical leaf … Bird … Reptile … Bear … Ape … Human … Map of the Netherlands
So did anyone get them all right? No prizes, I’m afraid.
P.S. To avoid libelling the Dutch hosts, the picture below makes clear the leaf at the bottom of the poster doesn’t look anything like a marijuana plant.
![]()

Trackback