Owl Pellet Lab

During the owl pellet lab, my partner and I took apart and owl pellet to try and figure out what animal the owl had ingested according to the bones we would identify. We started by taking it apart and extracting all bones. We proceeded to sort them into piles: long, small, vertebrae, and we separated the skull and mandible. We then measure the bongs and compared our measurement with the measurements given to us in our lab handout. Based on the evidence we collected, my partner and I came to the conclusion that the animal in our owl pellet was a vole. Evidence supporting our claim came from the owl packet which stated that the the average length of a vole's skull was 25 mm and the average width was 20 mm. Our data showed that the skull we possessed had a length of 26 mm and a width of 19 mm, which supports my claim. Also the skull we had possessed eye socket that were deep and had complete circles of bone around them which was identical to the picture of the vole skull in our owl pellet. These similarities in skull size and eye socket shapes show that the animal in our pellet was likely a vole because our data matches up with the average data provided in our owl packet. Differences between vole skeletons and human skeletons include the fact that voles have tails, and therefore have special bones suited to create that appendage that humans don't have. The voles tibia's also seemed to be larger than that of a humans when u compare it to the size of the voles fibula, maybe due to the positioning of their bodies when they move. Another difference is in the skull of the vole, where the head is longer horizontally than that of a humans and has a single large tooth at the front of the head followed by other teeth further back in the mouth, humans teeth are all close and don't have this same kind of separation. Similarities include the varying sizes of vertebrae which are seen in both voles and humans, and the similar make up of hands and feet (carpals, then metacarpals etc). Another similarity is in the number of ribs which was equal in both voles and humans.