Owl Pellet Bone Chart - A Guide to Bone Parts

An owl pellet bone chart is typically used during owl dissection as part of a laboratory activity in biology or ecology class. This is used as a reference guide to identify bones found in owl pellets.

Owl pellets are masses of undigested bone, teeth, hAir, feathers, and exoskeletons of various animals eaten by an owl. Owls feed at night and pellets may begin to form six to ten hours after consuming the meal. These pellets pass into the proventriculus where they remain until the owl regurgitates it. The owl regurgitates a single pellet approximately 20 hours after eating or until something stimulates the owl to spit the pellet out.

The barn owl can produce one or two pellets per day. A bone chart is basically a chart containing detailed illustrations of different parts of an animal. It may contain bone illustrations from a single animal or a number of animals. The parts are usually identified under which animal it belongs to. Pellet bone charts are typically used as references in identifying an animal's bone parts found in owl pellets.

The relatively weak stomachs muscles of the owl form the undigested fur, bones, feather, etc. into a wet slimy pellet. In this process, even the most fragile bones are usually preserved unbroken. It is these bones that students will be asked to recognize. During owl dissection, a student will be asked to expose all the bones in the pellet for identification. After organizing the bones into groups (skull, ribs, vertebrae, leg bones) and labeling them, students will need to refer to the diagram to help them identify the bones and assembling them on construction paper as shown in their bone sorting chart.

There are charts showing bone illustrations of the skull and jaw of a shrew, brown rat, specific birds, vole, and house mouse. You can also find an owl pellet bone chart that contains animal bone parts such as skull, jaw, scapula, forelimb, hind limb, pelvic bone, rib, and vertebrae.

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