A Unified Approach to Pose Estimation in Elephants and Other Quadrupeds using Noisy Labels

A Unified Approach to Pose Estimation in Elephants and Other Quadrupeds using Noisy Labels | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article A Unified Approach to Pose Estimation in Elephants and Other Quadrupeds using Noisy Labels Obafemi Jinadu, Karen Panetta, Jamie Heller, Srijith Rajeev, Kali Pereira, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6397651/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Pose estimation predicts anatomical landmarks in humans and animals from monocular images or videos. Animal Pose Estimation is crucial for monitoring locomotion, behavior, and activity recognition, playing a key role in wildlife conservation. Single species pose estimation studies capture features unique to the species but generalize sub-optimally, while multi-species studies provide broader generalization by assuming fixed keypoints for all quadrupeds, this oversimplification fails to capture unique anatomical traits in animals such as elephants. To harness the strengths of single-species and multi-species pose estimation, we present QuadPose, a framework that standardizes skeletal structures across datasets and improves generalizability through consistency-dependent pseudo-labelling. Additionally, JumboPose, a manually annotated dataset of 2,078 African elephant images with 33 keypoints tailored to their unique morphology is introduced. Extensive evaluations demonstrate the effectiveness of QuadPose for animal pose estimation. This work establishes a foundation for standardized, cross-species pose estimation, advancing applications in wildlife conservation, and veterinary research. Biological sciences/Computational biology and bioinformatics/Machine learning Biological sciences/Computational biology and bioinformatics/Image processing Biological sciences/Ecology/Animal migration Biological sciences/Ecology/Behavioural ecology Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6397651","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":440304474,"identity":"f0aa2e22-baf1-4c31-814d-48e0a83a1c04","order_by":0,"name":"Obafemi Jinadu","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABAklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACCQaGDyCSsRnI4WGwYWBgPgASZ8anhXEGkpY0CQa2ZKK0QAEPw2HCWvilmx82fMyxYGBu5z344W3b+TqDY/yHPzBUWCc24NAiOeeYYePMbSCH8SVLzm27LWFwjJlNguFMOk4tBjcSzB/zgrXwGEjzgrTcb2ZjYGw7jEdL+sfmvxAtxr95286BbGH+wPgPn5Ycw2ZGiBYzoC0HQFoYJBgbcGuRnHOmsLF3mwQPSIvlnHPJkjOPMZtJJBxLN8alhV+6fWPDz211cob9Z4xvvCmz4+c7xvj4w4caa1lcWmCAxxBFRQIB5WAgT4yiUTAKRsEoGJkAAAqxVYzAWDtxAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2066-8548","institution":"Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Obafemi","middleName":"","lastName":"Jinadu","suffix":""},{"id":440304475,"identity":"da765bfd-1775-4013-b271-336bbdc00a3a","order_by":1,"name":"Karen Panetta","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Karen","middleName":"","lastName":"Panetta","suffix":""},{"id":440304476,"identity":"4859f751-81bf-4a8e-9970-751d38fd446c","order_by":2,"name":"Jamie Heller","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jamie","middleName":"","lastName":"Heller","suffix":""},{"id":440304477,"identity":"03b46b45-1923-4d01-8201-43f0d9087e3a","order_by":3,"name":"Srijith Rajeev","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Srijith","middleName":"","lastName":"Rajeev","suffix":""},{"id":440304478,"identity":"83115026-8979-4810-a221-56c8cce21c7a","order_by":4,"name":"Kali Pereira","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kali","middleName":"","lastName":"Pereira","suffix":""},{"id":440304479,"identity":"c6593548-b896-4ec7-aa14-6043dbacf90d","order_by":5,"name":"Sos Agaian","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"College of Staten Island, The City University of New York","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Sos","middleName":"","lastName":"Agaian","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-04-07 22:55:08","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6397651/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6397651/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":81296101,"identity":"0b906108-2357-4aff-8bac-26e58e5d5b6e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-04-24 12:58:23","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2069710,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"QuadPosemanuscriptv8.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6397651/v1_covered_68157dab-c25d-4db5-bc46-3e9154ff69f6.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"A Unified Approach to Pose Estimation in Elephants and Other Quadrupeds using Noisy Labels","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6397651/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6397651/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Pose estimation predicts anatomical landmarks in humans and animals from monocular images or videos. 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