Owl Pellet Lab

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Owl Pellet Lab

• Introduction to Food Webs

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Why Owls?

• Owls are predators of small animals.
• Mouse
• Rat
• Vole
• Bird
• Owls search for food at night.

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What are Owl Pellets?

• Owl pellets are basically owl vomit.
• When an owl eats, it swallows the food whole and
  then regurgitates (spits out) the bones, furs,
  and feathers that it cannot digest.

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Lets Begin

• SAFETY FIRST!!!
• First, you need to put on your safety goggles and
  goggles.

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Materials

• Then, you need to get your materials. You need
• Owl Pellet
• Dissecting Pan
• Forceps
• Probe
• Metric Ruler

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Measure the Owl Pellet

• Using the METRIC side of the ruler, measure the
  length of the Owl Pellet.
• How long is yours?
• What does this tell you about the animal(s)
  inside of it?

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Observe the Owl Pellet

• Remove the foil wrapper surrounding the owl
  pellet.
• What do you see?
• Describe what it looks like.

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Open the Owl Pellet

• Hold the Owl Pellet with your forceps.
• Use the probe to gently pry open the Owl Pellet.
• Be careful not to break any bones!

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Remove bones

• Remove the bones carefully. Some bones are more
  fragile than others.

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Pile the Bones

• Make a separate pile of bones and fur/feathers.
• Try to separate the bones into groups based upon
  how they look.

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Determine what animal(s) your owl ate

• Compare the bones that you have to the bone
  chart.
• If you think you have a bird, look closely at the
  wastes to see if you had fur or feathers.

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Glue your Bones

• Glue your bones to a piece of cardstock.
• Be sure to separate the bones in one of the
  following ways
• Type of Bone
• Type of Animal
• As a Skeleton

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Sample Projects
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Class Display
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Discussion

• What animals do owls eat?
• What foods do those animals eat?
• Lets draw a food web based on this information.