Diet of the American Barn Owl, Tyto furcata (Temminck, 1827), in a Tabuleiro Atlantic Forest remnant in southeastern Brazil ...

• Main Authors: Köhler, Bianca, Guimarães, Lillian J., Srbek-Araujo, Ana Carolina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2019
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Rattus rattus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13446135; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13446135

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) The American Barn Owl (Tyto furcata) is a bird of prey that predominantly feeds on small mammals by swallowing them whole; the undigested parts are regurgitated in pellets. This study aimed to characterize the diet of the American Barn Owl in a lowland Atlantic Forest remnant in southeastern Brazil by analyzing the material contained in pellets. Prey items were quantified by counting the number of skulls or paired bones in each pellet, and the ages of the mammals (rodents) found as prey were classified based on the pattern of wear of the occlusal surface of the molars. For invertebrates, we counted the number of heads or hind legs. We analyzed 48 pellets and each one contained 1–7 depredated individuals (mean ¼ 4.0). Two major groups of food items were identified (192 specimens in total): mammals (Mus musculus [n ¼ 179 specimens, or 93.2% of prey items; FO ¼ 100%], Rattus rattus [n ¼ 2, or 1.0%; FO ¼ 4.2%], and Carollia sp. [n ¼ 1, or 0.5%; FO ¼ 2.1%]) and ...