Timor boobook

Timor boobook
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Strigiformes
Family: Strigidae
Genus: Ninox
Species:
N. fusca
Binomial name
Ninox fusca
(Vieillot, 1817)

The Timor boobook (Ninox fusca) is a species of owl in the family Strigidae. It is found on Timor, Roma, Leti and Semau Islands in the eastern Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia.[2][3]

It has a more grey-brown plumage with no red tinge, unlike other subspecies. It has grey streaks on its belly and white spots on its secondaries, inner wing-coverts and nape.[2] It was described by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1817 as Strix fusca.[4] Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr noted that it closely resembled the Australian boobook and concluded it was probably a subspecies of the latter,[5] and Mayr classified it as a subspecies in 1943.[6] Genetic and call analysis show it to be markedly divergent to the Australian populations of the Australian boobook, leading Gwee and colleagues to suggest it be reclassified as a separate species.[7] Its calls are shorter and more frequent than the Australian boobook.[8] It was reclassified as a distinct species in 2019.

  1. ^ "Appendices | CITES". cites.org. Retrieved 2022-01-14.
  2. ^ a b König, Claus; Weick, Friedhelm; Becking, Jan-Hendrik (2009). Owls of the World. Helm Identification Guides. A&C Black. pp. 457–59. ISBN 978-1-4081-0884-0.
  3. ^ Johnstone, R. E.; Darnell, J. C. (1997). "Description of a new subspecies of boobook owl Ninox novaeseelandiae (Gmelin) from Roti Island, Indonesia" (PDF). Western Australian Naturalist. 21: 161–74.
  4. ^ Veillot, Louis Pierre (1817). Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, appliquée aux arts, à l'agriculture, à l'économie rurale et domestique, à la médecine, etc (in French). Vol. 7. Paris: Chez Deterville. p. 22.
  5. ^ Hellmayr, Carl Eduard; Haniel, C.B. (1914). Die Avifauna von Timor (in German). Stuttgart: Im Kommissionsverlag der E. Schweizerbartschen Verlags Buchhandlung. p. 102.
  6. ^ Mayr, Ernst (1943). "Notes on Australian Birds (II)" (PDF). Emu. 43 (1): 3–17. doi:10.1071/MU943003.
  7. ^ Gwee, Chyi Yin; Christidis, Leslie; Eaton, James A.; Norman, Janette A.; Trainor, Colin R.; Verbelen, Phillippe; Rheindt, Frank E. (2017). "Bioacoustic and multi-locus DNA data of Ninox owls support high incidence of extinction and recolonisation on small, low-lying islands across Wallacea". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 109: 246–58. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2016.12.024. PMID 28017857.
  8. ^ Olsen, Jerry; Debus, Stephen (2010). "Is the Timor southern boobook a separate species?" (PDF). Boobook. 28 (1): 10.