Tyto
Temporal range: Late Miocene–Recent
African grass owl, Tyto capensis
The "grass owls" are two rather long-legged species of Tyto.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Strigiformes
Family: Tytonidae
Subfamily: Tytoninae
Genus: Tyto
Billberg, 1828
Type species
Strix flammea[1] = Strix alba
Linnaeus, 1766
Species

see text

Synonyms

Tyto is a genus of birds consisting of true barn owls, grass owls and masked owls that collectively make up all the species within the subfamily Tytoninae of the barn owl family, Tytonidae.

Taxonomy

The genus Tyto was introduced in 1828 by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg with the western barn owl as the type species.[2][3] The name is from the Ancient Greek tutō meaning "owl".[4]

The barn owl (Tyto alba) was formerly considered to have a global distribution with around 28 subspecies.[5] In the list of birds maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) the barn owl is now split into four species: the western barn owl (Tyto alba) (10 subspecies), the American barn owl (Tyto furcata) (12 subspecies), the eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica) (7 subspecies) and the Andaman masked owl (Tyto deroepstorffi).[6] This arrangement is followed here. Some support for this split was provided by a molecular phylogenetic study by Vera Uva and collaborators published in 2018 that compared the DNA sequences of three mitochondrial and one nuclear loci.[7] This split has not been adopted by other taxonomic authorities such as the Clements Checklist of Birds of the World maintained by members of Cornell University or by the list maintained by BirdLife International that is used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.[8][9]

The cladogram below is based on the 2018 phylogenetic study. The Andaman masked owl (Tyto deroepstorffi) and Itombwe owl (Tyto prigoginei) were not sampled. The Manus masked owl (Tyto manusi) was embedded in a clade with subspecies of the Australian masked owl.[7]

Tyto 

Minahasa masked owl (Tyto inexspectata)

Eastern grass owl (Tyto longimembris)

African grass owl (Tyto capensis)

Greater sooty owl (Tyto tenebricosa)

Lesser sooty owl (Tyto multipunctata)

Golden masked owl (Tyto aurantia)

Moluccan masked owl (Tyto sororcula)

Australian masked owl (Tyto novaehollandiae)

Red owl (Tyto soumagnei)

Sulawesi masked owl (Tyto rosenbergii)

Eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica)

Taliabu masked owl (Tyto nigrobrunnea)

Western barn owl (Tyto alba)

Ashy-faced owl (Tyto glaucops)

American barn owl (Tyto furcata)

Throughout their evolutionary history, Tyto owls have shown a better capability to colonize islands than other owls. Several such island forms have become extinct, some long ago, but some in comparatively recent times. A number of insular barn owls from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean were very large or truly gigantic species.

Extant species

Seventeen species are recognized:[6]

Image Common name Scientific name Distribution
Greater sooty owl Tyto tenebricosa Australia
Lesser sooty owl Tyto multipunctata Australia
Minahasa masked owl Tyto inexspectata Sulawesi, Indonesia
Taliabu masked owl Tyto nigrobrunnea Sula Islands, Maluku, Indonesia
Moluccan masked owl Tyto sororcula south Moluccas of Indonesia
Manus masked owl Tyto manusi Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands
Golden masked owl Tyto aurantia the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Australian masked owl Tyto novaehollandiae Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia.
Sulawesi masked owl Tyto rosenbergii the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Sangihe and Peleng
Red owl Tyto soumagnei Madagascar
Western barn owl Tyto alba Eurasia and Africa.
American barn owl Tyto furcata the Americas
Eastern barn owl Tyto javanica southeast Asia and Australasia.
Andaman masked owl Tyto deroepstorffi southern Andaman Islands
Ashy-faced owl Tyto glaucops Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
African grass owl Tyto capensis southern Congo and northern Angola to the central coast of Mozambique and the other centred on South Africa from the Western Cape north to the southern extremities of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique up to Kenya and Ethiopia.
Eastern grass owl Tyto longimembris eastern, southern and southeast Asia, parts of New Guinea, Australia (mainly in Queensland) and the western Pacific
Itombwe owl Tyto prigoginei Itombwe Mountains in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Extinct species

Known from ancient fossils
Late prehistoric extinctions usually known from subfossil remains
Fossils of Tyto cavatica
Fossil of Tyto ostologa

Former species

A number of owl fossils were at one time assigned to the present genus, but are nowadays placed elsewhere. While there are clear differences in osteology between typical owls and barn owls, there has been parallel evolution to some degree and thus isolated fossil bones cannot necessarily be assigned to either family without thorough study. Notably, the genus Strix has been misapplied by many early scientists as a "wastebasket taxon" for many owls, including Tyto.[12]

Description

They are darker on the back than the front, usually an orange-brown colour, the front being a paler version of the back or mottled, although there is considerable variation even amongst species. Tyto owls have a divided, heart-shaped facial disc, and lack the ear-like tufts of feathers found in many other owls. Tyto owls tend to be larger than bay owls. The name tyto (τυτώ) is onomatopeic Greek for owl.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Strigidae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ Billberg, Gustaf Johan Billberg (1828). Synopsis faunae Scandinaviae. Vol. Tome 1, Part 2 Aves. Table.
  3. ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1940). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 77.
  4. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 394. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  5. ^ Bruce, M.D. (1999). "Common barn-owl". In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 5: Barn-owls to Hummingbirds. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. p. 71. ISBN 978-84-87334-25-2.
  6. ^ a b Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Owls". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  7. ^ a b Uva, V.; Päckert, M.; Cibois, A.; Fumagalli, L.; Roulin, A. (2018). "Comprehensive molecular phylogeny of barn owls and relatives (Family: Tytonidae), and their six major Pleistocene radiations". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 125: 127–137. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2018.03.013. PMID 29535030.
  8. ^ Clements, J.F.; Schulenberg, T.S.; Iliff, M.J.; Fredericks, T.A.; Gerbracht, J.A.; Lepage, D.; Billerman, S.M.; Sullivan, B.L.; Wood, C.L. (2022). "The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2022". Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  9. ^ "Data Zone: HBW and BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist". BirdLife International. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  10. ^ SUÁREZ, WILLIAM; OLSON, STORRS L. (2020-08-14). "

    Systematics and distribution of the living and fossil small barn owls of the West Indies (Aves: Strigiformes: Tytonidae)

    "    . Zootaxa. 4830 (3): 544–564. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4830.3.4. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 33056145. S2CID 222819958.
  11. ^ a b Steadman (2006)
  12. ^ Mlíkovský (2002): p.217
  13. ^ a b Mlíkovský (2002)
  14. ^ Ballmann (1969)

References

External links

Genera of owls and their extinct allies
Taxon identifiers
Authority control databases: National
Categories