Find Their Food: Scat Trail

home - help - resources

Scat Trail

Scat Trail

How do scientist analyze scats? The image on the left shows jaguar scat found in Bolivia. In order to analyze this scat, scientists first dry it to destroy parasites, then soak it in water for a few days, and then pass it through a sieve and wash it, so that the objects in the scat remain and can be examined.

Most scat analyses focus on hair, although teeth and bones are also identified, but these are found in smaller amounts. (Which makes sense: Who wants to swallow a bone?)

Now that you have gathered prey data from the scat trail, analyze it further.

First off, take a look at how the different prey species are distributed in the jaguar's diet. One easy way to look at this is to make a pie chart.

Percent Occurrence of Prey Species in Cockscomb Jaguar Diet Chart*

To make a pie chart, draw a circle to represent 100%. Using the percentage of the total that each prey species represents, calculate the equivalent in degrees. Remember, 100% = 360°.

For example: Red brocket deer .07 (or 7%) x 360° = 25.2°

Fill in the table above with the degrees for each prey species, once you put in the correct answers, you will see the completed pie chart. You can round the numbers to make it easier to draw the pie chart.

***Total = 358° (Note: Due to rounding, the total doesn't equal 360°. "Other" may be recorded as the remaining 2° so that other = 34°) If you were to draw this pie chart, you would use a protractor.


	What do you find interesting about the distribution of prey in your pie chart? Is most of the jaguar's diet coming from where you expected it to?

↑top