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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Owl Pallet Lab

Today we dissected owl pallets in anatomy class. Our pallet was relatively small compared to others, and consequently had less bones. It weighed 3.47 grams, had a length of 4.5cm and a width of 3cm.

In the owl pallet, there was either a single animal or possible multiple, but it was hard to tell due to the lack of bones. In the pile of bones that are sorted out, there is no skull, and not really any bones with easy give aways to what the owl had eaten. There was multiple tibulas and fibula present as well as some ribs and vertebrae. The owl may have regurgitated the skull in another owl pallet, and therefore there was no skull in this one. Having a bigger pallet is nicer because there's a higher chance for one to see more bones. Although a complete skeleton was unable to be constructed, the bones did differ from that of a human body because they were much smaller in comparison to human bones. Another notable difference is the arrangement around the hip area; for many small rodents they had a tail coming out. A third difference is that humans walk on two feet, while the small creatures move on fours. They were similar in that they both have a ribcage, have a humerus, and have a
fibula.