Pellet (ornithology)

In ornithology, a pellet is the mass of undigested food that some bird species periodically regurgitate, made up of material such as insect exoskeletons, bone, fur, feathers or plant matter that the bird's digestive system cannot break down. Pellets typically form in the bird's muscular stomach, or gizzard, within six to ten hours of feeding, and their regurgitation clears indigestible material from the digestive tract, in birds of prey acting as a natural scouring mechanism. Because a pellet preserves the hard parts of what a bird has eaten, ornithologists use them to study diet without harming the animal, and different species deposit them in characteristic places, hawks and owls typically under coniferous trees and barn owls near cliffs, barns and silos. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/