Actualistic taphonomy of microvertebrates ingested by the owl Tyto furcata in a forested area. Implications for the fossil record

CAROLINA MOREANO; PABLO ORTIZ; M. V. PIA; M. MONDINI

Congreso; 4th Palaeontological Virtual Congress; 2023

Microvertebrates are common prey of nocturnal raptor birds,which usually have the ability to ingest whole prey andsubsequently expel the partially digested remains of bones,teeth, hair and feathers in regurgitated pellets. Based onframes of reference built out of actualistic taphonomic studies,it is possible to identify the type of raptor bird involved in thefossil record by categorising the degree of digestive corrosion,as well as the degree of breakage, in microvertebrate skeletalelements. Taphonomy can thus help assess biases caused bythese agents, as well as paleoecological information, for whichneotaphonomic studies are crucial. Here we present one suchstudy, done on skeletal remains (total MNE= 7361) from modernpellets produced by the strigiform Tyto furcata, recoveredin winter 2021 at Villa Padre Monti (Tucumán, Argentina), alocality associated with Yungas and Chaco Serrano forest. Theaim was to increase the samples characterising this taphonomicagent under different environmental conditions, as so far itwas known mainly from dry areas. Prey consisted of cricetidrodents. The analysis showed good skeletal preservationand a fairly complete anatomical representation, low levelsof fragmentation of cranial and postcranial elements, anda high proportion of skeletal elements with little or no signsof digestive corrosion, as defined by Andrews. Moderate andsevere digestion was only observed in a few elements. Ourresults are in agreement with other studies carried out on T.furcata populations from dryer environments, where this raptorspecies has been classified as a light bone modifier