How Bird Vomit Helps Us Understand History
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- Like many kids, I dissected owl pellets when I was in school - but I never realized they can be used by scientists to learn about certain aspects of an ecosystem. And today, paleontologists like Matt McDowell are using these pellets to learn about the history of an environment, to preserve them for the future.
↓ More info + Links! ↓
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Natural News from The Field Museum, our new news show!: bit.ly/2e0bWzN
"Looking forward to the past: what fossils tell us about extinction," bit.ly/2fg2B6b
"Extinction means more than a loss of species to Australia's delicate ecosystems" bit.ly/2ffGwY2
To learn more about Matt's work and research: www.flinders.ed...
You can (and should!) read Matt's papers, which we referenced for this episode: www.researchga...
Matthew McDowell's research is being supported by The Field Museum, and a grant from the Australia Awards -- Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships. For more information, visit their website: internationale...
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Credits:
Producer, Writer, Creator, Host:
Emily Graslie
Producer, Director, Editor, Graphics:
Brandon Brungard
Producer, Camera:
Sheheryar Ahsan
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This episode is supported by and filmed on location at:
The Field Museum in Chicago, IL
(www.fieldmuseum...)
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Whoever is responsible for the lighting and color/camera work when Emily is speaking in front of the shelves...nicely done. Keep up the great work! :)
Oh the owl earrings are exactly the right brain scoop touch. How do you narrate academic information and keep smiling? Love your videos. Never miss one.
A brain scoop video isn't over until Emily says, "It still has brains on it."
fasfan yup
Thumbs up for appropriate earrings (and also great video).
Back in high school in Biology class we were given owl pellets and we had to break them down, sort out the bones, and glue them onto an index card in the shape of the rodent we found. Then we had to identify the rodent. This was an extremely fun project (had a few fun ones really) and I think I still have that indexed rodent around somewhere...
Shoutout to all the nerds out there who are now fondly remembering their first owl pellet dissection! (And those looking it up to find their own now!) Love this crew here!
I would happily spend my life picking through owl pellets. Absolutely.
Also, Emily's acorn shirt! AWESOME.
mudbrowneyedgirl Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
Love how Emily's earrings are actually owls.
YOLO
Rewatching this because I'd forgotten about it and it came up in the related videos from the most recent episode, and I actually squeaked out loud at the first closeup showing off the earrings (as I probably did when I watched it the first time). Emily's fashion choices are on point.
You Obviously Love Owls ;-)
Bolod amio jani gadha kothakar
It's so nice to watch shows on youtube with people that really care about science, not news reporters just REGURGITATING facts.
Don't mind me just trying to SQUEAK in an owl pellet joke
Before I even watch this video... This title sounds REALLY COOL.
I ordered an owl pellet online years ago and dug through it some. I found a whole bunch of mouse bones, including the skull! Some of those bones are so tiny, it blows your mind!
You can save money by looking for some yourself. If you have raptors in your area (and most places do), chances are you can find a place where pellets are commonly deposited. Only think you really have to worry about is mistakenly collecting scat instead (which I seen people do), and the cleanliness of the pellets. The ones you order are usually cleaned for you, but you have the clean the ones you find yourself.
this is incredibly interesting! I've always found owl pellets interesting to dissect (even when my parents had told me not to) so seeing how it can contain history is rather exciting.
Arty Bateman Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
This was a hoot to watch!
duh puns
i love you
When I was in first grade my music class sang a song called "Owl Pellets." Mainly I remember chanting "Owl pellets, owl pellets, owl pellets..." and thinking they and the song were really cool. I guess I've always had a fondness for owl pellets as a result.
Raine Sarita Rucker Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
I really don't get how rodents aren't charismatic. They are adorable!
I agree! But not everyone sees them for the ecological value they provide to their habitats, and for some it's a lot easier to rally behind something big and majestic. But that's why we make these videos...! :)
I know, they're so smol!
i knew somebody that had pet rats and i loved them so much one loved being in my shirt (there was a hole in it) the rat would jump into the hole and come out the sleeve and do the reverse it was so kute
Dont have time to read alla this but, every living and non living thing has charisma IMO . Booohm , bless!
actally excuse me i do have time and am now going to read :P
In rural Oregon grade school, we got to search for and eventually dissect owl pellets. So many teeny tiny rodent bones. It was quite literally awesome in causing me such awe.
Whenever I was in third grade, we took a field trip to Skyranch in Texas and one activity we did was dissect owl pellets. It was very interesting.
I used to be a spelunker. Pristine undisturbed caves are getting extremely hard to find. Once discovered by humans, they quickly become trashed and any evidence or formations destroyed.
Forget caves. You don't even need caves. Just find areas that raptors commonly roost on, and look under them. For school, I did a project with a team, where we looked for and collected raptor pellets from underneath trees in the local wildlife area. Then we extracted all the useful bones and even some feathers from them, and then took them to an expert in the university to help us identify the species based on the bones (mostly jaws and teeth). I think it was about 60% of the species we identified were voles.
i opened owl pellets while studying biology and thought it was really cool (although counting teeths and looking at teeth-shapes is really tidius). but i didn't know about these places where there are so many pellets from such a long time ago - really cool!
emily your videos are always great, and they are such good quality! ❤️
Cliche to talk about woman science presenter's appearance on video's aside, I freaking love your shirt!! The acorns are so cute. Also I wish I had a chance to dissect owl pellets in school, that would have been the best day ever.
Samantha P --You can buy them online! Just search for "owl pellet dissection kit". Amazon has a bunch of different kits right now for 10-20 USD. Get one with a bone guide so you can identify what your find!
I had the same thought! At first I saw them as polka dots, but acorns are even better! (Also highly recommend owl pellet dissections-it's the most fun you can have with bird vomit.) :)
As a New Zealander, this is interesting but strange. A lot of these rodents including possums are considered pests in NZ because they eat native bird eggs. You might go on a bush walk and find possum traps all over the place designed to kill possums. And we aren't allowed hamsters in NZ which I found disappointing because hamsters are cute. I guess the ecosystem is just different here.
Owl pellets are so interesting. I want to collect more bones. they are fun to dissect
.
Is it possible to also identify the species that deposited the pellets to see how those populations changed aswell?
Yes! The consistency, color and density of the pellets can be an indication of which types of raptors deposited the them. For instance, barn owl pellets are very dark and glossy in color. Some raptors regurgitate more digested vs. less digested bits, etc. based off of the acidity of their digestive systems.
Faunal Analysis for the Win! Also love the illustration of the Aborigine using an Atl Atl. So cool!
I hear Kangaroo Island is a very HOPpening place!
You're bound to find something interesting over there...
MadeofAwesome4ever That's FURRY are you JOEY with me?
Well let's LEAP to it and aPOUCH the island then!!!
I was looking for this comment. Last Airbender FTW!
Tudor Sike Bumi is a mad genius!
It's amazing to see the innovative ways science finds to learn about the past. What a great video!
all of the little rats they're showing are freaking adorable
Julia S Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
This guy's research is amazing! Where do you guys find all these cool scientists to interview?
Sheryl Hosler Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
Awesome video!
I only got to dissect one owl pellet when I was a kid, but in it I found an almost fully intact rodent skull which I kept for many years. Until my sister's dog snuck into my room last year and ate it. The jerk. I hope to someday have the opportunity to dissect more :)
I have two Ziploc bags with rodent pones in them from dissecting owl pellets. I also have a bag with a bird thigh bone in it. My sister says I'm weird, so does my mom.....
I was about to point out that an echidna is a monotreme and not a mammal, but I looked it up to make sure, and it turns out that monotremes _are_ mammals.
You learn something new everyday. They are strange mammals though.
Yup, they're basically the most primitive-type mammals that have survived to modern day!
what i got from this episode is that regardless of where you live in the world, if you search hard enough for it you'll eventually find a cave filled with owl vomit
When I was in middle school, me and my friend would have "dissecting parties" where we just dissected a bunch of owl pellets! It was so fun! Once we found one pellet with four skulls in it! Vole, mole, and two field mice. Mmmm... tasty.
I am so interested in this! I dissected owl pellets in second grade and I always wondered where they were found!!! How can this be my job this is so cool
Heavan Tedder Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
You guys rock keep publishing this stuff 👍
YYYAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!! It STILLLL has brains on it!!!!
Very cool video. Thumbs up!
I just love this channel, you're all great! Thanks for teaching and inspiring!!!
thank you Harris family and Emily
Owl pellets are cool; there used to be people who sold kits of a couple of pellets and some tweezers. I'm lucky, my dad keeps birds of prey so no shortage of pellets to pick apart!
Very interesting. Also like you wore owl earrings while talking about owl vomit 👍
I was really expecting that owl at the end to throw up a pellet like "NBD, just making historical records for you fools."
Fascinating. On a completely unrelated matter, I really like Emily's hair in this video.
owl earrings...so cute!!!
This is SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!!
I never dissected a owl pellets when I was in school but after watching this video I wish I did and found out what owls ate but I did dissected a frog and it was cool.
Hey wow it's Matt! Represent us Aussies, man. Go Matt Go!
**so proud of my fellow South Australian!**
As an Australian every time an American show shines on us I get a moment of "THATS US! FUCK!"
Awesome acorn shirt.
Were the owl earrings a happy accident or intentional? Either way they're awesome and an awesome video :)
OWL EAR RINGS for the win!
For a moment I thought your earrings were Ray Harryhausen's Bubo from Clash of the Titans
keep it up Emily and company
there have been times when my vomit has helped me understand history. like when hung over "oh yeah, I did all my cheetos last night! and spaghetti!!"
Read T.H. white's Arthurian novel, "The Once and Future King". Magnificent book.
It took me over 2 years to realize that the earin'thingy is like the one from the magical bus
I didn't know that barn owls were so prolific!
a video on collecting raptor pellets in a cave would be neat
The medieval name for those owl pellets was "Fewmets".
wait. what?
Brought to you by, Hedwig mail service
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note: 1. please give a tip to the mailing owl (they love live mice)
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she's so adorable
Greatest video title every lol
love the earrings
Dream job, studying bird vomit, not even kidding, it's in the top list. Others are paleoart, and being the cgi morph suit person.
So why don't other continents do this as well? I know that other countries are also experiencing rapid extinction of creatures, so why don't their scientists do this sort of thing?
thank you emily
Great video! Have they been able to find out what small mammal has suffered the most due to European settlement? Is it even still around?
Little one, hush hush, do not say a word. A long time ago, in a far, far land ( North America ) there once lived a large rodent known as the beaver. When Europeans came to the Americas, the Natives hunted the beavers for their pelts. The demand for pelts from the Europeans grew quickly, and the beaver almost died out, THE END.
that was neatly done, I must say google is trolling hard on your comment, it said "read more" but NOTHING CHANGES.
so cool :)
10/10 earring use
gave me another insight of what rodents do awesome
i love videos that has only one dis like damn and its from 2016
But how do you determine,whether its a owl vomit or not?
Pachar bomi onek shundor
"but did you see the owl"
I didn't know there were rodents in Australia before Europeans got there, I thought it was all marsupials, except for the bats.
Me too. How were rodents able to cross the Wallace Line?
Maybe a raptor flew a live (and pregnant) one back to its nest and it escaped. Maybe one surfed across the way on a piece of driftwood during a storm.
We had two waves of rodent colonisation in Australia, so we do have placentals here. just none of the larger species. Except for dingoes, but they were a much later import.
+lilmisshorngirl
Dingoes are fascinating but must have followed humans across like other proto-dog types (New Guinea Singing Dogs, pariah dogs in Asia, and the American Dingo | Carolina Dog). I take it both waves of rodent colonization you are talking about were prior to the arrival of the first aboriginals.
The first wave was, it happened during the Pliocene (2-5 million years ago, roughly), but the second wave would have overlapped because it was during the Pleistocene (11,500 - 2 million years ago). Dingoes have only been here for about 4000 years.
+lilmisshorngirl
I didn't know dingoes were such a recent import. This was approximately the same time frame that more recent human migrants were showing up from India according to that one DNA study from the Max Planck Institute.
Anyways, neat stuff. I can't believe how many endemic rodent species there actually are in Australia. But I suppose given a few million years that is bound to happen.
remind me to start a raptor pellet pickin club near me
Science of "gross" is fun! Probably read this before but the blood and guts and stink of the early videos were magic. Be fun to see more. My 3 girls (all under 8) would like to see a brain scoop doing brain scoop things.
Bird vomit too? I'm familiar with bird entrails as determiners of successors to the throne or something. Do birds even vomit, really?
Joie OzyPunb Andi Lister Inbox me or meet me in my WhatsApp +13179832003.
"Poiled ohn tope ove eaych atha, oull the woiay threaugh toime."
Watching your videos sure is a HOOT! I wonder WHO discovered Owl Pellets! Are your videos scripted or do you just WING it!
Look at that rat and it's cute little paws.
0:06
cool cool cool
Name a language that doesn't have a silly word for owl.
Quite nice earrings ;)
I try to stay on #brand
I have the same ones! I'm quite fond of your collection of cool jewelry.
Hey im doing a project on science communicators!!!!
anyone want to help?
just tell me how you became a science communicator eg your science backround and passion for SCIENCE!!!!!
THANKS COOL SCIENCE PEOPLE
( dudes this is the only way i can keep class projects interesting, and asking cool people on the internet seemed like the best choice XD)
I'd say "no way!"
du dup du du du, du dup du du du du, dududududududupdu dup
it still has brains on it
If you're reading this and like science and animal news check out Jason millers channel! He's super devoted and in my opinion, doesn't get nearly the views he deserves
Just checked this out! Thanks! Always looking for more science people!
poor mouses
Cameron Sipka how?
*Mice
jeeeez colonization really fucks the environment
Your fingernails are just random sized red circles
I have a crush on your mind women . WOW :)