Owls are a group of highly efficient nocturnal birds of prey. Therefore, they present adaptations and hunting skills such as an excellent vision (vide their large eyes) great audition and specialized feathers to promote a silent flight.
As generalist predators they could feed on various animals, from invertebrates (such as insects) to large vertebrates. However, these birds do not have the ability to
chew their food and so the prey are swallowed whole. The soft tissues are digested to nourish them and then the undigested portions as feathers, hair, bones and
teeth are compressed into a pellet and subsequently regurgitated.
Given that,in one of my classes we had to
identify through the pellets dissected which
bones were present and assume which animals were predated according to the
pattern of bones that has each group. Through the analysis of these
pellets is important to understand the preferences of the animal, as well as
the dynamics of prey in a given ecosystem. It was expected to find bones of
rodents, moles, shrews and birds in separate pellets or even in the same one.
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| Expectation... |
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| My Owl Pellet |
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| Some bones separated (red box) from the fur. |
