"Hoo Eats Who?" Food Web & Dissecting Owl Pellet Assignment Instructions & Supplemental Questions Part A: "Hoo Eats Who” 1. Read through the information page & follow directions 2. Glue or tape the animals to a regular sheet of white paper 3. Keep in mind that the owl eats all of the animals but those animals also eat each other 4, Hand one food web in per groups with all group members names on it Part B: Owl Pellet Dissections 1. Read the information included below, complete the charts, & answer the questions as you go through the contents of your ow! pellet 2. Be sure to measure & weigh your pellet before you begin to take it apart 3. Use the keys to help you identify the contents of your owl pellet Supplemental Information: Owls are frequently caricatured because of their large, round eyes & fluffy feathers. These features are adaptations that help the owl in its quest for food as a nocturnal predator. The large eyes allow the ow! to see in dim light. The light fluffy feathers allow the owl to swoop silently onto its prey; they also keep the ow! warm on cold nights of foraging. In this lab you will analyze the food consumed by an owl. From these data you will determine common characteristics of ow! prey & make inferences about predator-prey relationships in an ecosystem Owls are not know for their finicky eating habits. They prey on animal that is small enough to be swallowed whole. An owl catches a small animal & eats the entire thing It cannot, however, digest the hard, tough parts such as bones, hair & feathers. In fact, these materials are blocked from reaching the intestines by the pyloric opening. Eventually, afler enough indigestible material has accumulated (usually a couple of hours), the ow! coughs it up as one solid ump. ‘This lump is called the owl pellet. This is a common characteristic of many birds. ‘The ow! pellet you will use has been dried &fumigated. You can learn what the owl has eaten by carefiilly picking apart the pellet & dissecting out the skulls & bones of prey animals. You will not need to analyze every tiny bone, but a careful count of the major bones of the body will tell you how many animals are in your pellet. You will identify the animals mainly by the skulls, mandibles & teeth, so be especially careful when dissecting these. What You Will Need: ‘These instructions & a pencil Ruler & scale ‘The keys to help identify Probe &/or forceps Owl pellet Field guidesee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee HOO EATS WHO? MAKING A FOOD WEB ITEMS NEEDED: - COPY OF ANIMAL FIGURES SHEET - TAPE, GLUE, OR PASTE * BLANK PAPER (11 x17) OR POSTERBOARD = SCISSORS - PENCIL, PEN, OR MARKER - TURN A LARGE SHEET OF PAPER LONG-WAY. DRAW GRASS, SEEDS, FLOWERS, AND PLANTS ON THE BOTTOM = CUT OUT THE ANIMAL FIGURES. AFFIX THE OWL TO THE TOP OF YOUR FOOD WEB. - ARRANGE THE OTHER ANIMALS ON THE PAGE WITH SPACE TO DRAW ARROWS IN-BETWEEN. PUT GRASS AND SEED EATERS NEAR THE BOTTOM. WHEN THEY ARE ALL ARRANGED, PASTE OR TAPE THEM IN PLACE. - DRAW ARROWS FROM EACH ITEM TO THE ANIMAL THAT EATS IT. YOU MAY WANT TO DRAW IN OTHER ITEMS SUCH AS WORMS (EATEN BY MOLES, SHREWS, AND BIRDS). FIGURING OUT HOO EATS WHO: OWL eats FIELD MOUSE, VOLE, BIRD, SHREW, MOLE, LIZARD, GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, MOTH FIELD MOUSE eats. ae and SEEDS, GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, vous meer ESR SE BIRD eats SEEDS, GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, MOTH SHREW eats GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, MOTH MOLE eats GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, MOTH LIZARD eats eee SEEDS, GRASSHOPPER, BEETLE, GRASSHOPPER eats LEAVES, GRASS, SEEDS BEETLE eats LEAVES, FLOWERS, SEEDS MOTH eats FLOWERSHOO EATS WHO? SAMPLE FOOD WEB AND ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS Below is a sample food web using all of the figures provided. if needed, you can simplify the food web by using fewer animals. For example: Ow, Vole, Bird, Shrew, and Grasshopper Another option is to make the food web a class activity. The figures can be placed on a sheet of posterboard. Students can draw in additional animals such as worms, frogs, and rats. i ee ees Lsdledd”‘ 7 af 7 LIZARD GRASSHOPPER BEETLE MoTHLab Procedure & Questions: 1, What are some ways you can predict which species of animals you might find in an owl pellet? 2. In what ways might the formation of ow! pellets increase an owl's survival in an ecosystem? 3, Complete Chart Length of Pellet (em) Width of Pellet (em) Weight of Pellet (g) | 4, Carefully tease apart the materials with your needle probe & forceps. Gently remove all of the bones & separate them ona large piece of paper. Keep other materials that represent invertebrates (wings or insect carapace) separate. Examine small unidentifiable materials with a hand lens or dissecting microscope to see whether they are parts of animals. 5. Group similar bones into piles using the keys to hetp you identify them, 6. Assign each skull a number (you can write this on the paper). Put the bones that belong to that skull below it on the paper. When we have idemtified everything we will glue the parts to the paper with rubber cement & label them. Do not glue anything until you have identified & correctly grouped everything in your pellet! 7. Check off items in the cart below to keep track of what you have found. Keep in mind that if the ‘owl swallows something whole; all the bones should be there for each animal it ate, Although, some animal skulls, such as small birds & lizards, might be too fragile to stay intact within the pellet, Skull & Jaw #1 | Stull & Jaw #2 | Skull & Jaw #3 | Skull & Jaw #4 | Skull & Jaw #5 | Jaw Length (mm) Tooth Type Shoulder Blade Hip Upper Leg Lower Leg Rib Back Bones Foot8, What different materials have you identified in the owl pellet? 9. How can you distinguish between vertebrate & invertebrate material? 10. Write a short description of any invertebrate material you have found: 11, How many individual vertebrates do you think your collection represents? 12. Do you think that the skulls you have found are from different species? Why? 13, How many different species do you think the remains represent? 14, Give your identification for your skulls found & use a field guide to tell its habitat [ [__Animal Habitat/Characteristics Skull #1 [ Skull #2 Skull #3 Skull #4 | Skull #5 15, How are the habitats, sizes & behaviors of the animals you identified the same as those of animals that might be they prey for owls? 16, Fill in a class data sheet for all animals found - on the board 17. Calculate the percentage of each animal present, Add the number of each species found & then divide by the total of all the animals found in all of the pellets for the class. Percent for one species = Total of one species / Total of all animals 18. What animals represented are most often in the diets of the owls your class studied? 19, What are the common characteristics of these animals? 20. [fall the owls whose pellets your class studies lived in the same ecosystem, what generalization could you make about the population size of the most common prey?