Initially believed to have been discovered in 2013 by Magnus Robb and the Sound Approach and confirmed using sound analysis, Omani Owl has created a stir among both birders and biologists. That a bird around the size of a Barn Owl Tyto alba had evaded discovery was extraordinary. That it was described and named only using sound recordings and photographs was controversial.
However in a new paper published today, Friday 21st August 2015, it is revealed that the owl was in fact a rediscovered species previously known from just one old type specimen in The Natural History Museum (Tring, England) said to be from Pakistan, and collected 135 years earlier.
The museum specimens of the closely related Strix butleri, which was still thought to be flying around today, were re-examined by a rival group of researchers who suspected that its type specimen was in fact the same as the Omani Owl. DNA analysis revealed in the paper now shows that Omani Owl is the same as Strix butleri. The other species flying around today is the recently renamed but much better known Desert Owl S hadorami (previously ‘Hume’s Owl’).
The new paper also examines DNA from a mystery owl discovered in Mashhad, northeastern Iran in January 2015. Babak Musavi and Ali Khani took four feathers for DNA analysis, which the team showed was also of an Omani Owl, the first confirmation that it still exists outside the Arabian peninsula and 1300 km from the nearest record of this species.
This new study once again underscores that much remains to be learned from owls. Magnus Robb’s recently published book ‘Undiscovered Owls’ describes his work on owls in detail.
Robb, MS, Sangster, G, Aliabadian, M, van den Berg, AB, Constantine, M, Irestedt, M, Khani, A, Musavi, SB, Nunes, JM, Sarrouf Willson, M & Walsh, AJ (2015). The rediscovery of Strix butleri (Hume, 1878) in Oman and Iran, with molecular resolution of the identity of Strix omanensis Robb, van den Berg and Constantine, 2013.
