science reflection.

In science, we are learning about Ecology. In Ecology I learned many new things about our environment, and we got to do fun activities. One activity that we did was dissecting an owl pellet. We dissected barn owl pellets and we had to put the bones inside the pellet together, in order to figure out what the owl ate. This helped us determine where the owl came from. As a class result, most of the groups had mice or rodents. I really enjoyed this experiment because; I liked to take the pellet apart and taking out all the bones. Also, the part where we had to put the bones together was very fun and challenging. One thing that was challenging in dissecting the owl pellet was that in my pellet, there were a lot of fragile bones, so my partner and I had to be careful not to chip them or break them.

What I learned about an owl pellet is that they can not digest bones, exoskeletons or fur, so they throw up a pellet. The process is called regurgitation. Once an owl pellet has eaten, it can not eat again until the pellet is removed from the owl, because the pellet blocks the digestive system. Also, owls have two stomachs. The first stomach is called the glandular stomach. The glandular stomach breaks down the owl’s food, since owls cannot break down themselves. The second stomach is the muscular stomach, or the gizzard. The gizzard is where the fur, bones and exoskeletons is placed and squeezes it together, to form an owl pellet. Owls eat their food whole which is another thing I learned in this activity.