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| What makes this owl tick?
The owl pellet dissection is another dissection I do not find most of the Living Environment Dept. doing much more. In my opinion it is a excellent activity for high school freshmen. It develops a concrete connection between predator-prey relationships and reinforces the skills needed to use a dichotomous key for prey identification.
For those that are squeamish about handling the egested parts of a rodent or bird, (prey) here is a link to a virtual owl pellet dissection and videos on the topic.
1. It is the only site that pops up on a google search. Its ok, but it does not allow for much manipulation of photos.
There is a activity on this link that allows you to put the skeleton of a Red Squirrel back together. It is valuable because it helps students to identify the bones of the rodents they will encounter.
2. This is great video of an Eagle Owl stalking its prey. Just cut and paste the link below into your address bar or click the link!
3. This video shows how owl pellets are collected. It is from the show, "Dirty Jobs".
Hopefully your students will embrace the owl pellet lab to make ecology real for them. If not the above should get the point across for them.
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Sunday, May 5, 2013
Owl Pellet Dissections
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Very useful links. I don't see any ethical objections to using owl pellets so hopefully the majority of students will do the actual lab first before the virtual one.
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