An Owl with Glasses Trivia Quiz

Answer: No

The sense of sight is one of the owl's keenest senses. Owls are nocturnal birds of prey - they need to be able to see well in low light. Their field of view is over 140 degrees with 70 degrees binocular vision (seeing with both eyes). This allows owls to see in three dimensions. An owl's forward facing eyes are necessarily large to improve their efficiency, especially under low light conditions. An owl's eyes weigh 2.5 - 5% of an owl's body weight (species dependant). The eyes are not balls but elongated tubes. This has disadvantages - an owl cannot roll its eyes or move them side to side - an owl can only look straight ahead. This requires skeletal adaptation, covered later in the quiz. Owls have a disproportionate ratio of rods to cones in the retina. The former are needed as rods are light-sensitive, needed in low light conditions. As a result, an owl has few cones so it does not distinguish colour well - in fact it is believed that an owl can see only in monochrome.

As an owl is dependent on its eyes more than most animals, it has three eyelids. The owl has a normal upper eyelid (for blinking) and lower eyelid (for sleeping). The third eyelid is a nictitating membrane which is a thin transparent layer of tissue that closes diagonally across the eye surface. This eyelid cleans and protects the surface of the eye.

Answer: Able to tell direction of sound because of the minute time difference in which sound is perceived in the left and right ear

Because owls are active at night, they need to have a highly developed auditory system to identify prey they cannot yet see. The tufts you can see on some owl species are just tufts of feathers - they are not ears. Owl ears are located at the sides of the head, behind the eyes, and are always covered by the facial disc. An owl's hearing is far more acute at middle frequencies enabling it to hear even the tiniest movement of prey moving in poor light.

Asymmetrical ear openings are prominent in the strictly nocturnal owl species, such as the barn owl or Tengmalm's owl. These species have a very noticeable facial disc, which acts like a "radar dish", guiding sounds into the ears. The disc shape can be altered on demand, using specialised facial muscles not found in other bird species. An owl's bill is also pointed downward, which increases the surface area over which sound waves are collected by the facial disc.

Answer: Wing tips

Owl wing feathers have comb-like or fringe-like leading edges. These are referred to as "flutings" or "fimbriae". With any other bird in flight, air runs over the surface of the wing, creating a noisy turbulence. With an owl's wing, the fringe-like feathered edge breaks the turbulence into smaller units called micro-turbulences. This effectively eliminates the sound of the air passing over the wing surface, allowing almost silent flight. A hypothesis that the flutings actually move the sound energy from wingbeats to a higher frequency, where most creatures that are prey cannot hear, is a widely held belief but has not been proven.

Silent flight means owls capture prey by stealth. This adaptation is not present in owl species that daytime hunt.

Answer: True

A unique-to-owls feature is a flexible joint to allow the outermost toe to swivel 180 degrees. The bones in an owl's feet are shorter but stronger than the same bones in other bird species. This is to withstand the force of impact with prey. The talons are extremely sharp. the underside of an owl's foot is a rough, knobbly surface that assists with grip of prey or for perching.

In a few species, it has been hypothesised that owls regulate body temperature through the soles of the feet, which are featherless and supplied with extra blood vessels.

Answer: An owl does not defecate

Owls, like other birds, cannot chew. Food is swallowed whole or by pecking. Most birds have a loose sac in their throat for food storage - owls do not, though they do like to have an external cache such as a tree hollow where they will store excess food until they need it).

A bird usually has a two part stomach, owls being no exception. The first part is a glandular stomach which produces enzymes, acids, and mucus to start the digestive process. The second part is the muscular part without digestive glands, which serves as a filter, retaining insoluble items such as bones, fur, teeth and feathers. Soluble food is then taken through the digestive process similar to mammals. Owls, like nearly all birds, have no bladder so defecation includes kidney waste. A few hours after eating, the indigestible parts of the consumed prey are compressed into a pellet which then travels upward into the first stage of the stomach where it will stay for up to ten hours before being regurgitated. As the stored pellet blocks the owl's digestive system, new prey cannot be eaten until the pellet is ejected. Regurgitation is often a sign of hunger and is a painless process for the bird.

Answer: Owls always have four eggs at a time producing four identical fledglings

Owls have lots of mating rituals, mostly based around males wooing females with distinctive, species specific, calls, hoots and screeches. Once paired the pair will be monogamous at least for the breeding season, demonstrating their affection for one another by preening each other.

Owls are territorial, especially during the breeding season. They actively defend their nests and surrounding feeding territory against all bird and animals that compete for the same resources. Attacks on intruders are vicious. Many people have lost an eye due to tawny owl attacks. Tawny owls, also kill long-eared owls in their territory, meaning the two species have discrete habitats with no overlap.

Answer: Opportunistic: Tree hollows, abandoned nests of other birds

Most owls will nest in trees, while other species are ground-nesters but all are opportunistic, favouring natural nests like tree hollows or another bird species' abandoned nests. Four to 13 eggs are laid with the female rarely leaving the nest and she develops a brood patch, free of feathers, on her abdomen to provide warmth for the eggs. Owl chicks hatch with an egg tooth, a temporary beak protrusion common to all birds, which drops off soon after hatching. Chicks are blind at birth. Learning to fly is species specific but typically occurs between 5-8 weeks.

The male delivers food to the nest up to ten times a day. Larger food items are torn apart and fed to the chicks in smaller pieces.

Answer: True

The beak of the owl turns down sharply and is honed to a fine point to permit tearing of the flesh of its prey. The downward curve of its beak is also designed to maximise its field of vision. The lower bill is hinged although the back of the upper bill has a narrow strip of flexible tissue that acts as a lesser hinge, allowing the beak to move slightly upwards.

The nostrils are two small holes at the base of the beak. Because of the superbly adapted mechanisms for prey-catching - sight, hearing and silent flight, there is no need for a keen sense of smell.

Answer: Its head can rotate 270 degrees

The owl's skeletal system must adapt to cover the inability of the owl to rotate its eyes. As such, the owl has fourteen cervical vertebrae whereas most other birds and nearly all mammals only have seven. It also has only one bone located on top of the backbone. Humans have two of these articulations.

This allows the owl's head to pivot on the vertebral column and, given there are twice as many vertebrae, extra angular rotation is both possible and necessary. To make this supreme head rotation possible, the owl has adapted specialised musculature to support this feature and has developed an intricate carotid blood supply network to avoid 'kinks' during extreme head rotations.

Answer: Highest brain to overall weight ratio in the animal kingdom

If you are told something often enough you will believe it. Owl wisdom all started with the Ancient Greeks. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom was often portrayed holding an owl or one was perched on her shoulder. Wisdom by association. This myth was permeated through the Iliad and was carried on through Aesop, and more contemporary children's authors such as A.A. Milne, Hugh Lofting, the entire Harry Potter franchise etc.

However, the Romans were terrified of owls as they considered them bearers of bad omens. The Aztec and Mayan cultures hated then and were fearful of owls as symbols of death. In India, owls are connected with ill-gained wealth and foolishness. Native American tribes terrified children with tales of owls waiting in the dark ready to cart them away. The ancient Egyptians however had a more benevolent view of owls, believing that they protected the spirits of the dead on their journey to the underworld.

Owls are simply not smart. One study of grey owls demonstrated they could not work out that if they pulled a string they got a treat. Common birds like parrots and crows learned the trick easily.

What is known, is that owls are birds of prey that have physiologically adapted to their need to hunt food with excellent eyesight, acute hearing, silent flight and sharp talons. Now if that is not street-smart, at least, this author does not know what is.

By the way, the highest brain to overall weight ratio in the animal kingdom belongs to the ant.