Slide 1

Owl PelletsBy Mary Claire F #11Period 8

Introduction

Silent Flight

Sharp Talons

HearingComparative Question I predict that no matter how much a pellet weighs, it wont change the amount of animals in it. Does the mass of a pellet affect the number of prey animals in a pellet?

ProcedureFirst we picked out our Owl Pellet from a box. We unwrapped the tin foil around the owl pellet and wrote down the basic facts about it. This included the mass, length, height, width, and some observations such as color, texture, and smell. Once we were finished doing that we moved on to dissecting the pellet. We broke the owl pellet into two pieces and then started to collect the bones from the pellet. This took a couple days because its a little hard to make sure we got every bone in there. When we finished collecting all of the bones we recorded our data. This helped us keep track of our bones Then we started building the skeleton. We glued the bones to the required area on the skeleton sheet. When we were done with that we answered questions about the lab. It really made us think about the project and made it easier for us to do the next step. That led to writing our Introduction and conclusion. At the end of it we made a report by either doing a power point or poster.

This is a picture of what we logged the data for our bones on.

This is a picture of us opening the owl pellet into two piecesMy Skeleton

This is a skeleton of a vole.

This is a picture of a vole when it has all of its fur and is still living.6

These are the bones that could be found in the pellet.Data TablesPrey animal foundNumber of eachNon-prey items foundVole2(Nothing found)Table 1: Summary of Individual Owl Pellet ContentsAnimalVolePocket GopherMouseShrewRatBirdMoleTotal# found49212101065Percent75.4%3%18.5%1.5%0%1.5%0%100%Table 2: Types of Prey Animals found in Owl Pellets Class Results (Period 8)Prey animals per pellet12345678Total # of pellets in classTotal # prey animals in class# of pellets184321012065Percent5%40%20%15%10%5%0%5%100%Table 3: Number of Prey Animals per Pellet Class Results (Period 8)AnimalVolePocket GopherMouseShrewRatBirdMoleTotal# found26027374030331Percent78.6%8.2%11%1.2%0%0.9%0%100%Table 4: Types of Prey Animals found in Owl Pellets (Entire Grade Results)Prey animals per pellet1234567>8Total # of pelletsTotal # prey animals in 6th gradeNumber of pellets830322011401106331Percent7.6%28%30%18.9%10.4%3.8%0%0.9%100%Table 5: Number of Prey Animals per Pellet (Entire Grade Results)Average number of prey animals per pelletType of prey animal contained by most pelletsNumber of prey animals contained by most prey animalsLowest to highest number of prey animals in on pellet3volethree1 -- 8Table 6: Entire Class StatisticsBar Graphs

Graph Related to my Comparative Question

This data is from 2014-2015 period 8 classDiscussion

This is a very small pellet but it looks like it has contains a couple of prey animals. Conclusion

It could be very easy to leave these tiny bones in the fur and then throw them out.