If an owl lives in a cave and likes to poop...

What comes to mind when you see the picture below?

Image source see watermark

Big round eyes, a pointed nose, short fat "arms"...

In fact, this is an owl-shaped urn (xiāo...hahaha, I knew you couldn't spell it, just look it up yourself) stored in the Shanxi Museum, which was unearthed from a Shang Dynasty tomb.

Owls are one of the totems worshipped by the Shang Dynasty people. The reason why the Shang Dynasty people worshipped owls was mostly because of the special appearance and unique living habits of owls, which made people feel very mysterious. This sense of mystery gradually transformed into a sacred religious emotion, so owls were revered as sacred birds by the Shang Dynasty people, and their figures can be found on many Shang Dynasty bronze wares.

Owls with big eyes

From the appearance, the owl looks very much like the little owl in nature. The little owl is a genus of the Strigiformes family, with a total of 4 species under this genus. One of them is the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia), which is famous for its love of cow dung. Of course, it is unlikely to be the prototype of the owl, because it is a bird living in the American continent.

Image source: gbif

The burrowing owl, also known as the burrowing owl, is 19-25 cm long, has a wingspan of 55 cm, and weighs 170-214 grams. It has a round head, a thin body, long legs, white cheeks, and a brown body. It has two thick white eyebrows, yellow eyes, and white stripes and spots on its back, wings, chest and abdomen.

The Burrowing Owl prefers open habitats. They are distributed in grasslands, deserts, agricultural and pastoral areas, gardens and other areas in North, Central and South America. They also like to live near human settlements, such as airports and golf courses.

Global distribution map of the burrowing owl, image source: wikipedia

The burrowing owl likes to prey on arthropods, such as beetles and locusts. Of course, small mammals such as rodents are also one of the main dishes of the burrowing owl. Unlike other owls, the burrowing owl sometimes eats fruits and seeds, especially prickly pear or cactus fruit.

The burrowing owl is the only owl that lives in a burrow. Studies have shown that burrowing owls actually have the ability to dig holes, but they always prefer to use the underground nests of other mammals to live. Under normal circumstances, burrowing owls like to come out at dusk and dawn, but when they need to feed their chicks, burrowing owls can go out of the burrow 24 hours a day.

The beautiful burrowing owl also follows the "monogamy" rule of birds, but occasionally there will be two males and one female. They can lay 4 to 12 eggs per nest, usually 9 eggs, and the female bird incubates for 3-4 weeks. Then the burrowing owl will be born.

Dung beetles aren't the only ones who like cow dung

Most burrowing owls live on the grasslands of North America, where bison live all year round. The burrowing owl's favorite thing to do every day is to come out of its burrow and compete for cow dung with dung beetles that also live on the North American plains.

That's right, although the burrowing owl looks gentle and cute, if you look closely, you will see its eyes flashing with sparkling light. It looks around on the North American plains and stares at the buttocks of the North American bison.

However, the owl is not interested in the fresh cow dung, which is its target. After locking onto the target, the owl will jump forward, cut the cow dung into small pieces, pack it and airlift it home, and then spread the cow dung evenly in and around the burrow.

Image source: gbif

The burrowing owl does not like to eat cow dung, but the "tourists" attracted by the cow dung are the delicious meal for the burrowing owl.

The smell of cow dung attracts dung beetles and other beetles to come and take a look. When these small insects approach the burrow, the owl will take the initiative to attack and "take down" them one by one with its beak.

The Burrowing Owl solved the two major problems of decoration and food and clothing in one trip, which really killed two birds with one stone.

Little Owl: "I want to go to the city"

Nowadays, some burrowing owls have integrated into cities where humans live, and we can often see images of burrowing owls and humans living in a warm relationship on major short video platforms.

Burrowing owls living in Brazilian cities, photo source: gbif

Why aren't burrowing owls afraid of people?

After research, scientists have found that the startled flight distance of urban birds is much shorter than that of birds in the countryside or the wild. Simply put, birds living in cities appear calmer when facing humans than birds living in the countryside (think about whether the little sparrows in our lives are also afraid of people).

At the same time, the rich food sources in urban environments are also the reason why many birds choose to settle down. A study on 3,000 pairs of burrowing owl chicks was conducted in Argentina. The results showed that the breeding success rate of burrowing owls living in cities was much higher than that of their counterparts living in the countryside.

Another study from 2008 to 2015 on three generations of a family of burrowing owls living in an Argentine city revealed that the startle distance of birds is highly heritable, which means that if the parents are not afraid of people, their babies will most likely not be wary of humans either.

Of course, this lack of "vigilance" is a good thing, but it also seems to be a bad thing. After all, what kind of "bad intentions" can humans have?

END

Review expert: Ran Hao, well-known popular science writer

Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/Heart and Paper