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Andaman Masked Owl
The Andaman masked owl (''Tyto deroepstorffi'') is a barn owl endemic to the southern Andaman Islands, an archipelago between India and Myanmar, in the Bay of Bengal.Bruce, M.D., Christie, D.A., Kirwan, G.M. & Marks, J.S. (2017). Common Barn-owl (''Tyto alba''). In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. (retrieved from http://www.hbw.com/node/54929 on 6 September 2017). Regarded by some authors as a subspecies of the common barn owl (''Tyto alba''), it is recognized by others as a species in its own right. Taxonomy The species was named by Allan Octavian Hume after the collector Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff who shot it at Aberdeen, Andamans. Hume placed it in the genus ''Strix''. Some authors consider this bird to be a subspecies of the barn owl/western barn owl ''(Tyto alba)'',or the eastern barn owl The eastern barn owl (''Tyto javanica'') is usually considered a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allan Octavian Hume
Allan Octavian Hume, CB ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British civil servant, political reformer, ornithologist and botanist who worked in British India. He was the founder of the Indian National Congress. A notable ornithologist, Hume has been called "the Father of Indian Ornithology" and, by those who found him dogmatic, "the Pope of Indian Ornithology". As an administrator of Etawah, he saw the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a result of misgovernance and made great efforts to improve the lives of the common people. The district of Etawah was among the first to be returned to normalcy and over the next few years Hume's reforms led to the district being considered a model of development. Hume rose in the ranks of the Indian Civil Service but like his father Joseph Hume, a radical member of parliament, he was bold and outspoken in questioning British policies in India. He rose in 1871 to the position of secretary to the Department of Revenue, Agriculture, and Commerce und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barn-owl
Barn-owls (family Tytonidae) are one of the two families of owls, the other being the true owls or typical owls, Strigidae. They are medium to large owls with large heads and characteristic heart-shaped faces. They have long, strong legs with powerful talons. They also differ from the Strigidae in structural details relating in particular to the sternum and feet. Barn-owls are a wide-ranging family, although they are absent from northern North America, Saharan Africa, and large parts of Asia. They live in a wide range of habitats from deserts to forests, and from temperate latitudes to the tropics. Within these habitats, they live near agricultural areas with high amounts of human activity. The majority of the 20 living species of barn-owls are poorly known. Some, like the red owl, have barely been seen or studied since their discovery, in contrast to the common barn-owl, which is one of the best-known owl species in the world. However, some subspecies of the common barn-owl poss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Andaman Sea to the east. Most of the islands are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India, while the Coco Islands and Preparis Island are part of the Yangon Region of Myanmar. The Andaman Islands are home to the Andamanese, a group of indigenous people that includes a number of tribes, including the Jarawa and Sentinelese. While some of the islands can be visited with permits, entry to others, including North Sentinel Island, is banned by law. The Sentinelese are generally hostile to visitors and have had little contact with any other people. The government protects their right to privacy. History Etymology In the 13th century, the name of Andaman appears in Late Middle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between Sangaman Kanda, Sri Lanka, and the north westernmost point of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is the largest water region called a bay in the world. There are countries dependent on the Bay of Bengal in South Asia and Southeast Asia. During the existence of British India, it was named as the Bay of Bengal after the historic Bengal region. At the time, the Port of Kolkata served as the gateway to the Crown rule in India. Cox's Bazar, the longest sea beach in the world and Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest and the natural habitat of the Bengal tiger, are located along the bay. The Bay of Bengal occupies an area of . A number of large rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal: the Ganges– Hooghly, the Padma, the Brahmaputra–Yamuna, the Barak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederik Adolph De Roepstorff
Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff (25 March 1842 – 24 October 1883) was a Danish philologist who worked in the Andaman penal colony in India, in charge of the Nicobar Islands, where he was shot dead by a convict. He studied the languages of Andaman and Nicobar tribes and collected numerous specimens of fauna and flora. The Andaman masked owl (''Tyto deroepstorffi'') was named after him by Hume. Biography De Roepstorff was born aboard an English ship sailing from Madras to Europe near the Cape of Good Hope and baptized in Cape Town giving him English citizenship. He was the son of Captain Adolph de Roepstorff and Charlotte Georgiana Holmes, born Farley. He studied in Copenhagen and at Horsens Statsskole graduating in 1863. He went to India in 1867 and became an extra assistant superintendent in the Andaman Islands penal colony and later became in-charge of the Nicobar Islands. His work was to supervise the prisoners. He went back to Denmark in 1871, married Hedevig Christiane Will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, other infraspecific ranks, such as variety, may be named. In bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barn Owl
The barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is the most widely distributed species of owl in the world and one of the most widespread of all species of birds, being found almost everywhere except for the polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, most of Indonesia, and some Pacific Islands. It is also known as the common barn owl, to distinguish it from the other species in its family, Tytonidae, which forms one of the two main lineages of living owls, the other being the typical owls (''Strigidae''). There are at least three major lineages of barn owl: the western barn owl of Europe, western Asia, and Africa; the eastern barn owl of southeastern Asia and Australasia; and the American barn owl of the Americas. Some taxonomic authorities classify barn owls differently, recognising up to five separate species; and further research needs to be done to resolve the disparate taxonomies. There is considerable variation of size and colour among the approximately 28 subspecies, but most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Barn Owl
The western barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is usually considered a subspecies group and together with the American barn owl group, the eastern barn owl group, and sometimes the Andaman masked owl make up the barn owl. The cosmopolitan barn owl is recognized by most taxonomic authorities. A few (including the International Ornithologists' Union) separate them Taxonomy The western barn owl was formally described in 1769 by the Austrian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli under the binomial name ''Strix alba''. The type locality is the Friuli area of northeast Italy. The specific epithet is from Latin ''albus'' meaning "white". This owl is now placed in the genus ''Tyto'' that was introduced in 1828 by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg. Ten subspecies are recognised: * ''T. a. alba'' (Scopoli, 1769) – northwest Africa, west, south Europe to the Balkans * ''T. a. guttata'' ( Brehm, CL, 1831) – central Europe and east Balkans to the Ukraine * ''T. a. ernesti'' ( Kleinschmi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Barn Owl
The eastern barn owl (''Tyto javanica'') is usually considered a subspecies group and together with the American barn owl group, the western barn owl group, and sometimes the Andaman masked owl make up the barn owl. The cosmopolitan barn owl is recognized by most taxonomic authorities. A few (including the International Ornithologists' Union) separate them into distinct species, as is done here. The eastern barn owl is native to southeastern Asia and Australasia. The eastern barn owl is nocturnal over most of its range, but in some Pacific islands, it also hunts by day. They specialise in hunting animals on the ground, and nearly all of their food consists of small mammals which they locate by sound, their hearing being very acute. They mate for life unless one of the pair is killed, after which a new pair bond may be formed. Breeding takes place at varying times of year according to locality, with a clutch, averaging about four eggs, being laid in a nest in a tree hollow, old b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans, and is driven primarily by the availability of food. It occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funneled onto specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. Migration of species such as storks, turtle doves, and swallows was recorded as many as 3,000 years ago by Ancient Greek authors, including Homer and Aristotle, and in the Book of Job. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, and modern scientific studies have used techniques including bird ringing and satellite tracking to trace migrants. Threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction, especially of stopover and wintering sites, as wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyto
''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. The name is from the Ancient Greek ''tutō'' meaning "owl". The barn owl (''Tyto alba'') was formerly considered to have a global distribution with around 28 subspecies. 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''). This arrangement is followed here. Some support for this split was provide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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