![]() The feathers are soft and the base of each is downy, allowing for silent flight. Like other birds of prey many owl species exhibit reverse sexual dimorphism in size, where females are larger than males.īecause of their nocturnal habits they tend not to exhibit sexual dimorphism in their plumage. The wings are large, broad, rounded and long. The family is generally arboreal and obtain their food on the wing. They tend to have large heads, short tails, cryptic plumage and round facial discs around the eyes. While typical owls vary greatly in size, with the smallest species, the Elf Owl, being a hundred times smaller than the largest, the Eurasian Eagle Owl and Blakiston's Fish Owl, owls generally share an extremely similar body plan. The 233 species of Typical owls (Strigidae) belong to one of the two generally accepted families of owls, the other being the barn owls. With grateful thanks to Rob Hutchinson/BirdTour Asia.| Turkeys, Grouse, Pheasants & Partridges It will also include unpublished formal descriptions of some new species from the Neotropics, so the list of exciting novelties to be described –and then, of major interest for global listers- will increase significantly in a matter of months. The formal description was published in the first issue of 2013 in Auk, advanced some time ago in the online version at JSTOR (Harrison et al 2013) available atĪll these cases will be included in a review of the new species discovered during last years for the forthcoming volume of HBW, the last of the series. Lately, other new species have also been described for other groups of birds, including confirmation as new species of Pincoya Storm-petrel ( Oceanites pincoyae), as have just been named the Storm-petrels colloquially known as ‘Puerto Montt Storm-petrels’ which were discussed already for a few years ago, after observations and photos obtained in pelagics near Puerto Montt (Chile). So, with the new Scops Owl from Lombok, there are already several owls discovered during the last decade: Pernambuco Pygmy Owl ( Glaucidium mooreorum) in 2002 (da Silva et al 2002 Ararajuba 10(2): 123-130), a species for which there are not yet photographs in the field (Luiz Cardoso da Silva pers com), which has been recorded in only two localities, being on the brink of extinction Little Sumba Hawk Owl ( Ninox sumbaensis) in 2002 (Olsen et al 2002 Emu 102: 223-231), present in Sumba, in the Lesser Sundas, known from the 80’s but confirmed by DNA time latter Serendib Scops Owl ( Otus thilohoffmanni) in 2004 (Warakagoda & Rasmussen 2004 Bull BOC 124(2): 85-105) from SW Sri Lanka and finally Togian Hawk Owl ( Ninox burhani) in 2004 (Indrawan and Somadikarta 2004 Bull BOC 124(3): 160-171), present in the Togian Islands, off Sulawesi. ![]() ![]() The original paper can be downloaded here: Its formal description has just been published (Sangster et al 2013), as Rinjani Scops Owl ( Otus jolandae). ………….Rinjani Scops Owl ( Otus jolandae) by Rob Hutchinson/BirdTour Asia.īut besides these, already in 2013 two new species have just been described One, a Scops Owl that lives in the Indonesian island of Lombok (located between Bali and Sumbabwa), known from a few years ago, but which was still formally undescribed. That new species has been named honouring Tasso Leventis, one of the members of BirdLife International Council, a photographer of birds and mammals from many parts of the world, but especially from Nigeria, where he has sponsored the creation of a bird research station, where many birds are ringed every year, especially by Swedish ringers. The other is the Camiguin Hawk Owl ( Ninox leventisi), present in Camiguin South, a small island near north Mindanao. One is the Cebu Hawk Owl ( Ninox rumseyi), from Cebu, which was rediscovered in 1998 after a long period of 110 years without known records. Two of the cases presented were ‘hidden’ taxa, not well-known. A group of these, are splits of the Philippine Hawk Owl ( Ninox philippensis), a species consisting of formerly several subspecies, some of which inhabited isolated in islands of that archipelago, now elevated to specific rank in a paper published in 2012 by Pamela Rasmussen and co-authors in Forktail (Rasmussen et al 2012, Vocal divergence and new species in the Philippine Hawk Owl Ninox philippensis complex. In the short period between 20, several new species of owl have been described. Rinjani Scops Owl ( Otus jolandae) and other species new to science
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