Animal skat photos coyote full#
Scats like that pictured below, full of fragments of acorns and hickory nuts, begin to show up in late summer. The summer diet of fruits and berries is often supplemented with insects, and you may find bear scats containing ant or yellowjacket parts. The bear that left the scat shown in the next illustration had been feasting on black cherries.
It’s only when higher quality edibles become abundant that bears begin to put on the pounds. Bears lose weight during hibernation and for many weeks afterwards because the grasses, sedges, and young shoots they must subsist on are energy-poor foods. The bear scat shown below was photographed in early May, and it’s made up of the remains of the newly emerging leaves and shoots the bear had been eating. In coastal marshes scats with crab shell fragments may predominate, indicating that crabs make up the bulk of the animals’ diet.įor many omnivores and carnivores scat contents vary with the changing seasons. In locations where fish are the main prey item, fish scales and bones will be the most common contents. The photo below shows river otter scat filled with crayfish shell fragments. To be on the safe side, it’s best to use sticks or other tools to manipulate scat, no matter whose it is. An important safety note: raccoon scat may contain the eggs of a parasite that can infect humans, so it should never be touched with bare hands. In the next photo you see raccoon scats with grape seeds and skins, apple seeds, ant parts, deer hairs, and the amorphous remains of deer flesh. Raccoons are omnivores, and their latrines often contain scats with a variety of contents. When herbivores eat foods high in water content their scat may be darker and softer, but the fibrous essence can still be seen. Scat contains the undigestible parts of everything an animal ingests, and it remains long after the creature has left the scene.įor herbivores, plant fibers make up the bulk of eliminations, so their scat has a grainy texture like the rabbit scat shown below. But for many mammals, especially omnivores and carnivores, scat is the best tool. We can observe animals when they’re hunting or feeding, and we can interpret chews, feeding sites, and feeding leftovers. There’s lots of general information available in books and other publications, but to understand the dietary habits of the animals in one’s own landscape requires a few steps beyond that. A big part of understanding animal lives is knowing what they eat.
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