Owl Pellet Lab Analysis

The purpose of this lab was to dissect an owl pellet to find bones of its prey. An owl pellet is the remains of an animal regurgitated by the owl that can be pieced together like a puzzle to identify it.

As we dissected the pellet, we noticed that the skull of the organism was small and pointed, compared to the flat and round shape of a human skull. It did not have the beak structure that a bird does, which is a sign that the animal is a rodent. The human skull and rodent skull both have basic defining features such as eye sockets, mandible and maxilla, and mouth. The skull measure 24 mm in length, which is close to the average length of a vole skull, 25 mm. The scapula is much wider and flatter than those of a shrew and mole, similar to the wide scapula of a human. Both the femur of a human and vole are similar, they are both the longest and strongest bone of the body, the difference is the pointy projection of the vole's femur.