Seeking knowledge: the life habits of nocturnal birds! ! ! ! Extremely urgent! !

ornithologists have long studied how owls catch mice. The eye of an owl is tubular, and some people describe it as a miniature telescope. There are extremely rich columnar cells in the retina of owl eyes. Columnar cells can sense external light signals, so owl's eyes should be able to detect extremely weak light. If the bird's eye is compared to a camera, then the eyes of most birds suitable for daytime activities are standard lenses with small caliber, and the eyes of owls are telescope heads with large caliber and long focal length. Therefore, for a long time, people have always thought that owls fly and prey in the dark by vision. However, if the visual sense system of ordinary birds is used to measure the owl, then to achieve the vision of an owl, its whole brain must be composed of visual nerves!

In modern times, advanced science and technology pushed the research on owl behavior to a new stage. Some ornithologists put the barn owl (a kind of owl) in a completely dark room and observed its rat-catching activities with infrared photography equipment. The experiment was done very skillfully. There is nothing in the room except some scraps of paper scattered on the ground. At the beginning of the experiment, the ornithologist released a mouse into the laboratory and began to video. From the video, it is found that as long as the mouse steps on the ground, the barn owl can catch it quickly and accurately.

From further research, ornithologists found that the owl's hearing is very sensitive, and it plays a major role in positioning in the dark environment where it can't see its fingers. Owl's left and right ears are asymmetrical, the left ear canal is obviously wider than the right ear canal, and the left ear has a well-developed eardrum. Most owls also have a cluster of ear feathers that form human-like auricles. Owls have well-developed auditory nerve. A barn owl weighing only 3g has about 95, auditory nerve cells, while a crow weighing about 6g has only 27,. In addition, the owl's face is densely covered with hard feathers, and this face plate is a good sound wave collector. The owl's huge head makes the distance between its ears larger, which can enhance the resolution of sound waves. When an owl searches for prey in the dark, its first reaction to the sound is to turn its head, just as we listen to the small noise. But the owl doesn't really listen to the ear. The function of turning its head is to make the time for sound waves to reach the left and right ears different. When this time difference increases to more than 3 microseconds, the owl can accurately distinguish the direction of the sound source. Once the owl judges the position of its prey, it attacks quickly. Owl's feathers are very soft, and there are velvet-like dense down on its wing feathers, so the frequency of sound waves generated by owl when flying is less than 1 kilohertz, which is not felt by the ears of ordinary mammals. This silent attack makes the owl's attack more "blitzkrieg". According to research, when an owl pounces on its prey, its hearing still plays a positioning role. It can constantly adjust the direction of attack according to the noise generated when the prey moves, and finally claw out, which works in one fell swoop. Of course, the owl's vision and listening to the party complement each other in hunting, and it is precisely in all aspects that it adapts to the nocturnal life and becomes an efficient night hunting expert.

There are 133 species of owls in the world, and the barn owl mentioned above is just one of them. In southern China, there is an owl that is very similar to a barn owl, that is, a grasshopper. The grasshopper's face looks like a monkey, so many people call it a monkey-faced eagle. Grasshoppers often haunt cemeteries, and their flight is erratic, and their songs are sharp and harsh, which often reminds people of wild ghosts wandering in cemeteries. In fact, grasshoppers haunt the graveyard because there are plenty of wild rats for them to prey on.

Owls, also called owls, are commonly called owls because their eyes are round and big, much like those of cats. Owls belong to the nocturnal birds of prey of the order Ostriniformes, with more than 18 species. There are about 26 species of owls distributed in China, all of which belong to the national second-class protected animals.

The unique feather design makes nocturnal owls the quietest flying birds in the world, and sometimes even silent to their prey. Its eyes are not born on both sides of the head like other birds, but in front. The owl's big eyes can only look ahead, and when it wants to look both ways, it must turn its head. The owl's neck is long and soft, and it can turn 27 degrees. Because it is a kind of prey that comes out at night, their hearing is very keen, and their ears are not at the same level, which is beneficial to determine the correct position of prey according to the sound made by ground prey.

Owl is one of the most widely distributed bird species in the world. Owls can be seen all over the world except the Arctic. Owls depend entirely on catching live animals for food. The size of the prey depends on the size of the owl, ranging from insects to rabbits. The feathers around the eyes are radial, forming a so-called "face plate". The mouth and claws are bent into hooks. Most of the feathers are brown, scattered with fine spots, dense and soft, and silent when flying. Night and dusk activities, the main food is rodents, and sometimes they prey on birds or large insects.