Last Meal

Humor me for a moment in imagining the great learning potential of opening up an animal for the first time during taxidermy preparation. The very visceral experience of seeing, and yes, smelling, internal organs is surely something to overcome. But once you courageously embrace the experience, it truly becomes an opportunity to explore the former life, habits, and health of the animal. 

Former collections staff were courteous enough to leave me with photographic documentation of an occasion when they opened up a ruffed grouse. I'd like to share a few of their notes and a selection of the most conservative photos with you. 

The team had cut into the grouse's abdomen and began exploring contents of its digestive system. There was a lot of evidence left over!

These leaves were all found in the grouse's crop. A crop is an essential part of digestion, particularly for birds who eat seeds, nuts, and leaves. The crop is like a pouch, where food is internally stored as the bird quickly gathers before heading off to safety to continue the process of eating. From the crop, food then passes to the stomach. A gizzard is not the same as a crop - it is a part of the stomach where hard foodstuffs are broken down. Because material was not yet broken down through digestion, staff were able to easily identify leaves from barren strawberries, clover, and quaking aspen from the crop.

The grouse's stomach was full of seeds, which were being further broken down as part of digestion at the time of the grouse's death. The contents were still fairly recognizable to anyone familiar with a grouse's food sources.

And just like that, we have the grouse's last meal documented!