The Andaman masked owl (''Tyto deroepstorffi'') is a
barn owl endemic
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 else ...
to the southern
Andaman Islands, an archipelago between India and Myanmar, in the
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 betwee ...
.
[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.
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Taxonomy
The species was named by 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, Hum ...
after the collector 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 ...
who shot it at Aberdeen, Andamans. Hume placed it in the genus ''Strix''.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 re ...
''(Tyto alba)'',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 i ...
(''Tyto javanica''),
Description
The Andaman masked owl grows to a length of between , with a wing of around and a tail of . It is almost uniformly dark reddish-brown above, with some speckling of buffish-orange. The facial disc is pale reddish-buff with a distinctive orange-brown margin. The eyes are blackish and the beak creamy-white. The breast is golden-brown with blackish spots, paling towards the belly, which is whitish. The legs are fully feathered to near the feet. The toes are greyish-pink and the claws purplish-grey. The voice has been described as a rather high-pitched, short, rasping, descending shriek which terminates abruptly and is repeated several times.[
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Distribution and habitat
The Andaman masked owl is known only from the southern Andaman Islands.[ It occurs on the coastal plain, in fields and gardens with trees, and in human settlements. It is not thought to be migratory.][
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Ecology
Little is known of the habits of this owl but they are likely to be similar to those of other related species. It is nocturnal, roosting during the day and emerging at dusk. It feeds on small rodents, and the bones of mice and rats have been found in regurgitated pellets beneath roosting places. It probably nests in cavities but details of its breeding habits are not known.[
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References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q489866
Tyto
Birds described in 1875
Birds of the Andaman Islands
Endemic fauna of the Andaman Islands