The Time Hack

Day 357: Reconstruct an animal skeleton using bones found in owl vomit

Girlfriend: “So I have the perfect present for your sister for Christmas.”

Matt: “Oh?”

GF: “I met a woman who has a passion for finding bones located inside owl vomit and bottling them up in glass vials.”

M: “Wait. What?”

GF: “I should buy it for you - so you could give it to your sister. Essentially, there is a woman who runs a shop here in Greenpoint (Brooklyn) who will go out into the wilderness in search of owl vomit, which she calls owl pellets, and dig through the vomit there were any bones regurgitated in the throw up. She then takes those bones, puts them into cute glass vials and sells them.”

M: “Yep, sounds perfect. She’d love it.”

For day 357 of The Time Hack, I took sea urchin bones found in owl vomit and attempted to reconstruct the animal with the help of sticky tack.

Why not.

REMEMBERED DETAILS

1. I believe 31 bones were used to recreate the sea urchin.
2. The majority of each bone was white in color, with a dash of brown around each end.
3. The ball of gum was green in color and attached to a clear pushpin.
4. The other vials in the box included a rodent backbone and a bee. The box said there was supposed to be a fourth vial containing the bones of a seahorse. That container was missing.
5. On the desk, where I was working there was a pair of tweezers, the box in which the bones came, sticky tack and a camera.
6. I rotated the camera in a counter-clockwise motion around the recreated sea urchin.

ACTUAL EVENTS

What happened on day 357? Find out here. And here.

REMEMBERED TIME

I estimate that it took 37 minutes and 20 seconds to recreate the sea urchin using sticky tack and bones found in owl vomit.

ACTUAL TIME

How long did it take? Find out here.

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