Owl pellet lab

In this lab we had owl pellets (owl throw up) and disected through them. We picked out the fur, and the bones separately. We had to be very careful because the little bones were fragile. Once we picked the bones out we had to identify what kind of animal it was depending on its bone types. Ours was a rodent not a bird. It was a pocket gopher. We knew because of the tail bone and the skull and teeth. The skull length was between 30-42 mm. The evidence from the packet and our picture shows us that the fact we had a pocket gopher holds true. The human skeleton and the pocket gopher skeleton are similar because they both have a skull. The ribs are similar because of the last two being floating ribs. Humans and rodents also share the Femur, which is the big thigh leg bone. There were also differences in bones,such as the phalanges on the pocket ghoper had claws unlike human phalanges. The rodents have the two front teeth which are sharp for cathing prey called incisors. The rodent also has a much longer tail bone than the one bone involved in the human.