Seeds have a few ways of travelling, whether it’s often carried by the wind or maybe in fruit by animals. Dispersal by animals is called zoochory, an example would be how a squirrel carries away acorns and buries them. Laura Godó and colleagues have been studying a process called diploendozoochory. Their findings, published in Global Ecology and Conservation, describe how Barn Owls, which are carnivores, can be used by plants to travel to new habitats.

Godó and colleagues based their study in the Hortobágy National Park in eastern Hungary. It’s part of the Great Hungarian Plain, a region known for its wide open grasslands. In this area, barns owls swoop over the grasses looking for mice, shrews and voles. They find plenty and so are never tempted to look for plants to eat to supplement their diet, yet they end up eating plant material nonetheless.

The reason is that their food has already eaten plant material. Barn Owls, Tyto alba, enjoy eating Common Voles, Microtus arvalis, and the voles eat plant material, including seeds. While owls eat voles, swallowing them whole, they can’t digest everything. Fur and bone, in particular, are a problem, so maybe six hours after eating a vole, they cough up a pellet of undigested material. It’s this pellet that includes the plant seeds.