Multi-Taxa Neo-Taphonomic Analysis of Bone Remains from Barn Owl Pellets and Cross-Validation of Observations: A Case Study from Dominica (Lesser Antilles)

Multi-Taxa Neo-Taphonomic Analysis of Bone Remains from Barn Owl Pellets and Cross-Validation of Observations: A Case Study from Dominica (Lesser Antilles)

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Paleo- and neo-taphonomic analyses of bone assemblages rarely consider all the occurring taxa in a single study and works concerning birds of prey as accumulators of microvertebrate bone remains mostly focus on small mammals such as rodents and soricomorphs.However, raptors often hunt and consume a large range of taxa, including vertebrates such as small mammals, fishes, amphibians, squamates and birds.Bone remains of all these taxonomic groups are numerous in many paleontological and Course a pied - Homme - Vetements - Manteau - Impermeable archaeological records, especially in cave deposits.

To better characterize the predators at the origin of fossil and sub-fossil microvertebrate accumulations and the taphonomic history of the deposit, it is thus mandatory to conduct global and multi-taxa taphonomic approaches.The aim of this study is to provide an example of such a global approach through the investigation of a modern bone assemblage from SPDT 24V Relay a sample of pellets produced by the Lesser Antillean Barn Owl (Tyto insularis) in the island of Dominica.We propose a new methodology that allows us to compare different taxa (rodents, bats, squamates and birds) and to experiment with a cross-validation process using two observers for each taxonomic group to test the reliability of the taphonomic observations.