''Tyto gigantea'' is an extinct

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 Himalaya ...

from what is now

Gargano Gargano (, Gargano Apulian Italo-Romance arˈgæːnə is a historical and geographical sub-region in the province of Foggia, Apulia, southeast Italy, consisting of a wide isolated mountain massif made of highland and several peaks and forming ...

, Italy, dating back to the late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

. From its remains, ''T. gigantea'' is suggested to have been as large as or larger than the

Eurasian eagle-owl The Eurasian eagle-owl (''Bubo bubo'') is a species of eagle-owl that resides in much of Palearctic, Eurasia. It is also called the Uhu and it is occasionally abbreviated to just the eagle-owl in Europe. It is one of the largest species of owl, ...

(''Bubo bubo''). Tyto gigantea - tibiotarsus

This species seems to have lived at the same time as the closely related owl, '' Tyto robusta''. That would represent a single lineage of owls adapting to the largest size of their prey on the island, such as the great erinaceomorph of Gargano, ''

Deinogalerix ''Deinogalerix'' (from Ancient Greek, "terrible/terror" + ''Galerix'') is an extinct genus of gymnure which lived in Italy in the Late Miocene, 7-10 million years ago. The genus was apparently endemic to what was then the island of Gargano, whic ...

'', and rodents.Mlíkovský, J. (1998)
A new barn owl (Aves: Strigidae) from the early Miocene of Germany, with comments on the fossil history of the Tytoninae
''Journal für Ornithologie'', 139(3), 247-261.

References

Tyto Miocene birds Fossils of Italy Fossil taxa described in 1973 {{paleo-bird-stub