Fishing with Pepsico

Dissecting Owl Pellets

Owls are a type of carnivorous bird called raptors. Other raptors include hawks, eagles, falcons,and ospreys. Most raptors hunt small mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and larger invertebrates. All raptors possess similar adaptations that allow them to hunt: they are strong and agile fliers, they have keen eyesight to locate prey, strong legs and talons for capturing prey, and hooked bills to tear flesh. Although owls share these characteristics, they have adapted to their nocturnal lifestyle. Other species of raptors are active primarily during the day so they have not evolved these specialized adaptations to be active at night.
Owls can digest only the soft muscles and organs of their prey. The bones, teeth, fur, feathers, scales, or insect skeletons are too dense and cannot be converted into energy. Instead, the waste material is formed into a pellet by the gizzard muscles and passed back up the esophagus to be cast out (thrown up) about twelve hours later. Although other birds, like eagles and hawks, also regurgitate pellets, owls are more efficient at it and they regurgitate more frequently. Owls swallow their prey whole, ingesting the entire skeleton.