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Project Noah Nature School
The beak looking thing is actually a front tooth (it would be two teeth but one fell of the mouth during cleaning). It has continuously growing incisors, and it must gnaw on things with them to keep them short and sharp.
This is the skeleton of a rat from an owl pellet I dissected at Wilderness Wildlife Week.
Spotted on Jan 17, 2013
Submitted on Jan 18, 2013
4 Comments
Very good!! I also did a study on owl pellets many years ago and found that 45% of the diet of the owls from a pine grove was composed of Norway rats, showing again, the often unappreciated value of wildlife. BTW, I have blanked the scientific name for you since it should only be used for official scientific names.
Brilliant find, and great having a pellet in the background with contents in the foreground. :-)
I love dissecting owl pellets! Please consider adding this spotting to the "Identifying Animals Through Osteology" Mission: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8475...
Excellent work detective.