Photo by Chris Bosak
An Eastern Kingbird regurgitates a pellet in Stamford, Conn., May 2015.

Ever eat an insect and notice how hard the outer shell, or exoskeleton, is?

I hope you answered no to that question. I certainly haven’t. But you can imagine that if you ever did bite into an insect it would be crunchy, kind of like eating a lobster without removing the meat from the shell first. You can also imagine that the exoskeleton would be difficult, if not impossible, to digest.

So how does that undigested shell come out? Everyone knows that owls regurgitate pellets of undigestible material, such as beaks, bones, feathers, claws and fur. Not as commonly known, however, is that many insectivores (things that eat insects) regurgitate pellets as well.

I was aware of this, but never witnessed it until the other day when I was watching an Eastern Kingbird. It was perched in a small tree at Continue reading →