Pygmy owl

Pygmy owls are members of the genus Glaucidium. They belong to the typical owl family, Strigidae. The genus consists of 29 species distributed worldwide. These are mostly small owls, and some of the species are called "owlets". Most pygmy owl species are nocturnal and they mainly hunt large insects and other small prey.

Pygmy owls
Temporal range: Late Pliocene to Recent
African barred owlet
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Strigiformes
Family: Strigidae
Genus: Glaucidium
F. Boie, 1826
Type species
Strix passerina
Linnaeus, 1758
Species

See text

Guatemalan pygmy owl (left) and red-chested owlet (right); illustration by Keulemans, 1875
Ferruginous pygmy owl

Taxonomy

The genus Glaucidium was introduced in 1826 by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie.[1] The type species was designated as the Eurasian pygmy owl by George Robert Gray in 1840.[2][3] The genus name is from Ancient Greek glaukidion meaning "little owl" or "owlet". It is diminutive of glaux meaning "owl".[4]

A molecular phylogenetic study of the owls published in 2019 found that the widely distributed northern hawk-owl (Surnia ulula) is sister to the genus Glaucidium.[5]

Species

The genus contains 29 living species:[6]

Fossil specimens

Kurochkin's pygmy owl (Glaucidium kurochkini) is a fossil species known from the La Brea Tar Pits that likely went extinct during the Quaternary extinction. The supposed prehistoric species "Glaucidium" dickinsoni is now recognized as a burrowing owl, probably a paleosubspecies providentiae. Bones of an indeterminate Glaucidium have been recovered from Late Pliocene deposits in Poland.[7] Fossil material belonging to a new species of Glaucidium was described in 2020 as G. ireneae. The fossils were recovered from Pliocene/Pleistocene transitional strata in South Africa.[8]

References
  1. Boie, Friedrich (1826). "Generalübersicht der ornithologischen Ordnungen, Familien und Gattungen". Isis von Oken (in German and Latin). 19. cols 969–981 [970].
  2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1940). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 127.
  3. Gray, George Robert (1840). A List of the Genera of Birds : with an Indication of the Typical Species of Each Genus. London: R. and J.E. Taylor. p. 6.
  4. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  5. Salter, J.F.; Oliveros, C.H.; Hosner, P.A.; Manthey, J.D.; Robbins, M.B.; Moyle, R.G.; Brumfield, R.T.; Faircloth, B.C. (2019). "Extensive paraphyly in the typical owl family (Strigidae)". The Auk. 137 (ukz070). doi:10.1093/auk/ukz070.
  6. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2021). "Owls". IOC World Bird List Version 11.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
  7. Mlíkovský, Jirí (2002). Cenozoic Birds of the World, Part 1: Europe (PDF). Prague: Ninox Press. p. 215. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-11.
  8. Pavia, Marco (2020-11-15). "Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the Cradle of Humankind during the Plio-Pleistocene transition, inferred from the analysis of fossil birds from Member 2 of the hominin-bearing site of Kromdraai (Gauteng, South Africa)". Quaternary Science Reviews. 248: 106532. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106532. ISSN 0277-3791. S2CID 224866137.
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