WARNING – the photos in this post might seem a bit disgusting to some readers, especially if you are squeamish about vomit and half-eaten critters. Consider yourself forewarned!
This past weekend there was a mess on the sidewalk in front of our neighbor’s house. This was pile #1. The ants have obviously already gotten to it and are looking for food to bring back to their home. The big white curved shapes look like bones of some sort- I’m not sure.
A couple of feet away was pile #2. The Green Bottle Fly might be searching for a place to lay some eggs (more coming from this insect in a Slugyard post later in the week). The dark areas look like maybe some sort of hairy mess? Again – I’m not sure.
A couple more feet down the sidewalk was…
…THIS. Half of a mouse.
What happened here? What animal did this?
I’m not sure. The two piles look like something regurgitated (thrown up!) by an animal. Owls routinely do this- they eat animals whole and vomit up pellets. Pellets are made of the parts they can’t digest like bones, feathers, fur, etc. I can see what looks like fur and bones in the piles, but I didn’t think that owl pellets had so much slime around them.
Any ideas? And why would an animal remove the mouse head but not eat the rest?
A good nature mystery…
I’m thinking it could be a house cat. A wild animal probably would eat the whole mouse, but the cat has food at home.
You could be right, Anne. The thought had crossed my mind, but it seemed strange to me that a cat would have eaten bones.
[...] Yes, these insects shown here are scavenging the same mess I talked about the other day. [...]
[...] Uh, not so fast. This fly lives in and around dead animals, poop, and garbage. This fly pictured above is either eating or laying eggs in the same mess I posted about last week. [...]
[...] to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, they hunt for fish and swallow them whole. Like owls, they spit up pellets at the end of the day to get rid of bones that they can’t [...]