Owl Pellets
Introduction
Owl pellets are masses of bone, teeth, hair, feathers and exoskeletons of various animals preyed upon by raptors, or birds of prey. Owls have weak stomach muscles that form undigested bones, feathers, and fur. Because they can’t break those things down they regurgitate them in the form of a ball called a pellet. Owls produce these pellets and regurgitated them approximately 20 hours after eating. The purpose of this lab is to dissect an owl’s pellet and investigate what was on that singular owl’s diet. We are first to do this by identifying the bones of the animals the owl eat.
Hypothesis
If I were to examine and dissect a different owl pellet
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4. After cleaning the bones we started to identify each single one of them with the bone diagram. Once identified we organized the bones into groups and started labeling them. Bones Found: . Scapula of a mole . Scapula of a rodent . Forelimb of a bird
. Pelvic bone of a shrew
. Rib of a rodent
5. Once we were done analyzing the bones and organizing them into groups, we cleaned everything up and put our tools back were they belonged and how we originally found them.
Data analysis
1. What do we know about the digestive system of an owl based upon the pellets? Based upon the pellets we know that owls cannot digest the bones of some animals because their enzymes aren’t sufficient enough to break them down. Because of this inability to digest fur, bones, and feathers they are later on regurgitated out.
2. Owl pellets not only give us information about the diet of the owl, owl pellets also provide a habitat for other animals, and in fact an owl pellet is a little ecosystem all on its own. What kinds of animals are found in the owl pellet ecosystem? Clothes moths, carpet beetles, and fungi can be found in the owl pellet ecosystem. The owl pellets provide food and a shelter for them to survive in.
3. Other types of birds form pellets. What would you expect to find in the
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