Owl living habits and appearance

Owls, with their round heads and big eyes, are active at night and look for food.

In ancient Greek mythology, there is a goddess of wisdom called Athena, and it is said that her love bird is an owl. Therefore, the ancient Greeks worshiped the owl very much and considered it a symbol of wisdom. ?

So, how do owls catch mice? ?

Ornithologists have long studied how owls hunt mice. The owl's eyeball is tube-shaped. Some people describe the owl's eye as a miniature telescope. The retina of an owl's eye is extremely rich in columnar cells. Columnar cells can sense light signals from the outside world, so the 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 small-diameter standard lenses, while the eyes of owls are large-diameter, long-focus telephoto lenses. Therefore, for a long time, people have believed that owls rely on vision to fly and hunt in the dark. However, if the owl is measured by the visual sensory system of ordinary birds, then to achieve the vision of an owl, its entire brain must be composed of visual nerves! ?

In modern times, advanced science and technology have pushed the study of owl behavior to a new stage. Some ornithologists put barn owls (a type of owl) in a completely dark room and use infrared photography equipment to observe the barn owls' mouse-hunting activities. The experiment was done very cleverly. There was nothing else 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 started videotaping it. From the video, it was found that as soon as the mouse steps on the shredded paper on the ground, the barn owl can quickly and accurately capture it. ?

Ornithologists have discovered from further research that the owl's hearing is very sensitive, and its hearing plays a major role in positioning in a dark environment where it is difficult to see. The owl's left and right ears are asymmetrical. The left ear canal is significantly wider than the right ear canal, and the left ear has a well-developed ear drum. Most owls also have a tuft of ear feathers, forming a human-like auricle. Owls have very developed auditory nerves. A barn owl weighing only 300 grams has about 95,000 auditory nerve cells, while a crow weighing about 600 grams has only 27,000. In addition, the owl's face is densely covered with raw hard feathers to form a facial plate, and this facial plate is a good sound wave collector. The owl's large head puts the ears farther apart, which improves the resolution of sound waves. When an owl is searching for prey in a dark environment, its first reaction to a sound is to turn its head, just as we listen to a small noise. But the owl doesn't really listen. The effect of turning its head is to make a difference in the time it takes for the sound waves to reach the left and right ears. When this time difference increases to more than 30 microseconds, the owl can accurately distinguish the direction of the sound source. Once the owl determines the location of its prey, it quickly attacks. The feathers of an owl are very soft, and the wing feathers are densely covered with velvet-like down. Therefore, the frequency of the sound waves generated by the owl when flying is less than 1? kilohertz, and the ears of ordinary mammals cannot detect such low frequencies. This silent attack makes the Owl's offense more "blitzkrieg" effective. According to research, when an owl pounces on prey, its hearing still plays a role in locating it. It can continuously adjust the direction of the attack based on the noise produced by the movement of the prey, and finally launches its claws, which is effective in one fell swoop. Of course, the role of the owl's vision and hearing in hunting are complementary to each other. It is precisely because it has adapted to the nocturnal life in all aspects that it has become an efficient night hunter. ?

There are 133 species of owls in the world, and the barn owl mentioned above is just one of them. There is an owl in southern my country that is very similar to a barn owl, and it is the grass owl. The face of the grass owl is very similar to a monkey, so many people call it a monkey-faced eagle. Grass owls often appear in cemeteries. Their erratic flight and shrill chirps often remind people of wild ghosts wandering in cemeteries. In fact, the reason why meadowlarks hang out in cemeteries is because there are abundant wild mice for them to prey on. ?

Owls, also called owls, are commonly called owls because their eyes are round and large, much like cat eyes. Owls are nocturnal raptors of the order Owlidae, and there are more than 180 species. There are about 26 species of owls distributed in my country, all of which are national second-level protected animals. ?The unique feather design makes nocturnal owls the quietest flying birds in the world, sometimes even soundless to their prey. Its eyes are not on the sides of its head like other birds, but are located directly in front. The owl's big eyes can only look ahead; when it wants to look sideways, it has to turn its head. The owl's neck is long and soft and can rotate 270 degrees. Because they come out to hunt at night, their hearing is very keen. Their two ears are not at the same level, which is helpful for determining the correct location of the prey based on the sounds made by the prey on the ground. ? The owl is one of the most widely distributed extant bird species in the world. Owls can be found all over the world except in the Arctic. Owls rely 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 radiating, forming the so-called "face plate". The mouth and claws are both curved and hook-like. The feathers all over the body are mostly brown with scattered fine spots, dense and fluffy, and are silent when flying.

Active at night and dusk, it mainly eats rodents and sometimes small birds or large insects