Interactive · Kids 8–14
Sherlock Bones & the Mysterious Missing Mouse
Join Sherlock and his trusty sleuth Sir Whetson to solve the captivating mystery of the missing mouse — by piecing together the real bones inside a barn-owl pellet.
Play the game →Solve
A real mystery
Gather the clues hidden inside the pellet before time runs out. Every case is different because the bones inside came from a real predator’s real dinner.
Learn
Owl biology
Discover what barn owls eat, how they catch it, and what their leftovers tell us about the ecosystems they live in.
Win
Real prizes
Document your discoveries, share them, and enter occasional prize drawings. Education should be a journey worth taking.
Gift to classrooms
It’s free to play, download, or project
Sherlock Bones runs in any modern browser. There’s also an iOS and Android app, and a teacher pack with sterilised real barn-owl pellets we’ll mail to your classroom — no subscription, no in-app purchases.
Why owl pellets
Dissecting an owl pellet is one of the most direct introductions to biology a young learner will ever get. It’s hands-on, it’s a little messy, and the answer is always different — because the bones inside came from a real predator’s real dinner.
When kids pull a pellet apart, they’re not following a worksheet. They’re going on a small expedition: which bones belong to which animal, what the owl ate that week, what was actually living in the field the night the pellet was cast. The activity grabs their attention because the evidence is genuinely uncertain — and uncertainty is what makes biology a science.
What they learn without noticing
- Barn-owl diet — what barn owls eat, how often, and what that tells us about a landscape’s small-mammal population.
- Food chains and ecosystems — by reassembling prey remains, students see how energy moves through a habitat and why mesopredators matter.
- Skeletal anatomy — how to tell a vole femur from a shrew skull, why some bones dissolve in a predator’s gut and others do not.
- How scientists actually work — careful observation, documentation, drawing conclusions from physical evidence. Sherlock does not guess. Sherlock measures.
- Patience — the game doesn’t skip to the answer. You work the case.
For teachers and parents
Sherlock Bones is part of our Passport to Wildlife educational program — content we develop specifically for elementary and middle-school audiences, aligned informally with NGSS life-science standards (grades 3–8). A full teacher guide (lesson plans, comprehension questions, extension activities) is in progress. Email info@wolfcenter.org to get on the early-access list.
Education should be a journey of discovery. Sherlock Bones is one way to start that walk — short enough for an afternoon, real enough to spark a career.
What’s next for Sherlock
A second case is in development — set in the Pacific Northwest, featuring a different predator and a different piece of evidence. Announcements in the C3 Journal and the monthly newsletter.
Keep going
More for young naturalists
Free biology eBooks
Two illustrated guides — the secret impact of wolves, and a primer for kids thinking about a career in biology. Free in your inbox.
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Help us build the next case
Support the work
Every case in this series, and every classroom kit we mail out, is paid for by readers like you. A monthly gift keeps Sherlock writing his next mystery.
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