Josh spotted the remains of an owl pellet beneath a pine tree and was excited to find these bits of a rodent’s jawbone, complete with both front teeth and a couple molars. (The good thing about having a dog is that we always have a plastic bag handy for occasions like this.) You can see the front teeth in the top half of the jaw on the far left. There’s also some hair wedged in the bone, which is a bit of compacted pellet remains. The middle bone is a piece of most likely the lower jaw. No teeth remain in that one, but the larger piece on the right contains two molars. Each molar is ridged on the side, making one tooth look like two. [See the rest of the pellet contents after the jump.]
This photo shows the rodent’s right-side incisor removed from the jaw so you can see how long it really is. This one is about half an inch long. Rodent incisors (and the molars of some voles) grow continually, so the animal must gnaw on stuff to prevent it from growing too long. It’s interesting to see that most of the incisor is actually contained within the jawbone.
Cool..CSI stuff..I don’t see any pellets here, just poo, but the wood ducks are back!!!