''Bubo osvaldoi'', also known as the Cuban horned owl, is an extinct species of

horned owl The American (North and South America) horned owls and the Old World eagle-owls make up the genus ''Bubo'', at least as traditionally described. The genus name ''Bubo'' is Latin for the Eurasian eagle-owl. This genus contains 19 species that ar ...

from

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. It was described by

Oscar Arredondo Oscar Paulino Arredondo de la Mata (18 July 1918 – 20 July 2001) was a Cuban paleontologist. He described a number of birds and mammals of the Quaternary Period from fossils obtained from Cuban caves. He has been called the "father of Cuban verte ...

and

Storrs L. Olson Storrs Lovejoy Olson (April 3, 1944 – January 20, 2021) was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known ...

in 1994 from three bones found in a cave in the

Guaniguanico Guaniguanico, also known as Cordillera de Guaniguanico, is a mountain range of western Cuba that spans from the centre-west of Pinar del Río Province to the western area of Artemisa Province. It is formed by the subranges of Sierra del Rosario ...

mountain range in

Pinar del Río Pinar del Río is the capital city of Pinar del Río Province, Cuba. With a population of 139,336 (2004) in a municipality of 190,332, it is the List of cities in Cuba, 10th-largest city in Cuba. Inhabitants of the area are called ''Pinareños'' ...

. Analysis of these indicates that the species was larger than any current owl.

References

Pleistocene birds Bubo (genus) Fossil taxa described in 1994 {{Strigiformes-stub