Last time I was in NM this time of year the sweat bees were pretty bad outdoors. They’d buzz all about you and try to drink your sweat. They seemed attracted to humans even if we were not sweating.
Yeah they are pretty insistent here in PA too. They’re not something to be worried about but with them, the mosquitoes, and the gnats it’s a bit buggy overall.
M.A.
Why do you have to gut rodents for raptor food? Raptors just eat them whole, don’t they?
Peter Rogan
Actually. no; lacking incisors to cut flesh or molars to masticate it, raptors tear off bits of flesh to gulp down. They don’t eat their prey in one gulp, unless they’re exceptionally large, the prey is exceptionally small, and they’re exceptionally hungry. Eviscerating prey gives the raptor access to the softer, more easily torn organs inside. Paleoanthropologists think this is the way early man, all the way up to the end of the Pliocene, dealt with their own prey. Lacking the tools to easily carve up muscle or even strip away fur and hide, the easiest thing to do was to cut open the carcass and eat the internal organs. We have found mastodon skulls broken in such a way as to suggest they were deliberately bashed open to dig out the brains.
I asked Cedra, and here’s the reason they do it where she is volunteering. First is that raptors will do the disemboweling on their own if you let them, which keaves you with the option: you can either have the rather nasty bowels in one controlled easy-to-clean butchering area, or have to clean them up a day later strewn all over a raptor’s cage. The other reason is that their food is carefully weighed. If the bowels were still inside the “food,” you don’t have as accurate a reading (since the bowels aren’t counted, since they are not eaten). 🙂
Night-Gaunt49
Thanx M.A. and Pete Rogan—asked and answered.
War Pig
If it is a smaller prey an owl will swallow it whole then expel the inedible bones and such in a pellet. Owls can swallow pretty big things for their size but other raptors usually don’t.
Dennis Rockwell
We saw Julia McKenzie as The Witch on stage in a London production of “Into the Woods”. She did a great job, and it was good to see her live after several years of imported British sitcoms.
Last time I was in NM this time of year the sweat bees were pretty bad outdoors. They’d buzz all about you and try to drink your sweat. They seemed attracted to humans even if we were not sweating.
Yeah they are pretty insistent here in PA too. They’re not something to be worried about but with them, the mosquitoes, and the gnats it’s a bit buggy overall.
Why do you have to gut rodents for raptor food? Raptors just eat them whole, don’t they?
Actually. no; lacking incisors to cut flesh or molars to masticate it, raptors tear off bits of flesh to gulp down. They don’t eat their prey in one gulp, unless they’re exceptionally large, the prey is exceptionally small, and they’re exceptionally hungry. Eviscerating prey gives the raptor access to the softer, more easily torn organs inside. Paleoanthropologists think this is the way early man, all the way up to the end of the Pliocene, dealt with their own prey. Lacking the tools to easily carve up muscle or even strip away fur and hide, the easiest thing to do was to cut open the carcass and eat the internal organs. We have found mastodon skulls broken in such a way as to suggest they were deliberately bashed open to dig out the brains.
Gee, is it dinnertime already?
I asked Cedra, and here’s the reason they do it where she is volunteering. First is that raptors will do the disemboweling on their own if you let them, which keaves you with the option: you can either have the rather nasty bowels in one controlled easy-to-clean butchering area, or have to clean them up a day later strewn all over a raptor’s cage. The other reason is that their food is carefully weighed. If the bowels were still inside the “food,” you don’t have as accurate a reading (since the bowels aren’t counted, since they are not eaten). 🙂
Thanx M.A. and Pete Rogan—asked and answered.
If it is a smaller prey an owl will swallow it whole then expel the inedible bones and such in a pellet. Owls can swallow pretty big things for their size but other raptors usually don’t.
We saw Julia McKenzie as The Witch on stage in a London production of “Into the Woods”. She did a great job, and it was good to see her live after several years of imported British sitcoms.
Oh, she’d Be great for that. Sounds like it was fun. 🙂