Science- Owl Pellets

This week we started looking at life cycles in science, and dissected owl pellets! Before we started dissecting our pellets, we made some predictions about what we were going to find inside. A few kids actually had barn owls in their barns, so they had a lot of prior knowledge! We discussed how pellets form when owls (or hawks and eagles) regurgitate the 'leftovers' that their stomach enzymes and acids couldn't dissolve. Then we talked about what it means for scientists to dissect something, set our expectations for the day, and began! (Side note: The pellets were sterilized before they were shipped, and we made sure to wash our hands and desks after touching the bones and before touching anything else. If you look for pellets around your house and barn they will NOT be sterile.)

This was probably one of the coolest investigations we have done. I always LOVE to see everyone's faces light up when they discover something new and unexpected, and I really love to hear their excitement and the connections they make- and this day was full of energy and discoveries! Here are a few of the things we discovered:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we fully dissected the pellets, and separated the bones from the fur and feathers, we tried to piece the skeletons back together as much as we could, and attempted to determine the animals they had come from. Then we used our pieces of skeleton and the skulls found to estimate the species and number of animals that we had found. 

 

 

 

We tallied this on our bones poster, discussed our findings, and they created bar graphs to show the number of animals we found. After we were all done we discussed how the pellets, owls, rodents, and other caterpillars and bugs fit into a food web, and what levels they were all on. This led into a great discussion on where animals in Wyoming fit into a food web, and where carnivores and herbivores generally fall.

It was such a fun day, and we all learned so much, myself included!