The purpose of the Entry Zone is to help EthoVision determine that if an animal is seen in the Entry Zone and then disappears, it must have entered the Hidden Zone. For each Hidden Zone, at least one Entry Zone must be created and linked.
If the animal is tracked correctly in the arena and the Entry Zone, but appears as “missing” once it enters the Hidden Zone, the issue is likely that:
To confirm the Entry Zone is properly linked:
✔ Ensure the box for your desired Hidden Zone is selected.
Optional: Enable the setting “Use the entry zone also as a leaving zone”. This setting improves accuracy by ensuring that an animal is considered to have left the Hidden Zone only after it crosses back through the Entry Zone—not just when it is next detected. This reduces false exit counts caused by brief reappearances (e.g., head pokes).
If the Entry Zone is correctly linked but animals still go “missing” after entering the Hidden Zone, the Entry Zone might be too small.
Why size matters:
Best practice:
If the animal is detected while inside the Hidden Zone, it is no longer hidden and may be marked as having left. If it later disappears again but was not seen in the Entry Zone, it will not be counted as re-entering the Hidden Zone.
To avoid this, you may enlarge the Entry Zone to cover the entire Hidden Zone.