Photo by John Hoang

A Burrow Owl makes hunting look easy.

There’s a lot of things in this photo to comment on, so let’s get something going on here. You’ve all been too quiet lately!

  • onigiri
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    3 months ago

    I never thought about this! So interesting to think of owls contributing to the fossil record (ish) through pellets.

    • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      I was listening to something recently about early humans, and the program was saying we originally thought “cavemen” lived in caves, but it’s moreso they were originally just the easiest places to find human remains (people and they’re stuff) as they preserved things so well.

      One of the things that makes owls particularly good at this is that they tend to have a favorite spot to drop their pellet every day, so they tend to leave a bunch in the same place. Find that place, and you’re set!

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        So early humans did use caves for shelter. They didn’t go very deep, and it wasn’t everywhere, but places that have cave paintings those were shelters used.

        They were kind of temporary, though, since they followed the food as hunter gatherers.

        But yeah, there’s a disproportionate amount of stuff found in caves because of how well they’re preserved.

        • anon6789@lemmy.worldOP
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          3 months ago

          For sure! Just like now, we live pretty much anywhere we can find something to eat.

          The cave is not mandatory. 😄

          Just wanted to touch on a stereotype of our ancestors.

          Also no evidence of Neanderthals being dumb, it’s just the first guy to identify one felt they looked dumb… 😵‍💫

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            they were making tools, probably as smart as we are. just a much lower technological head start.

            and there’s probably a fair bit of neanderthal DNA floating in the human genome. (its a bit… misleading to say europeans have 1-2%; there would have been substantial overlap)