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Species of owl From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Mindanao scops owl or Mindanao highland scops owl (Otus mirus) is an owl endemic to Mindanao island in the Philippines. It is found in tropical montane forest above 1,000 meters above sea level. It is threatened by habitat destruction and deforestation.
| Mindanao scops owl | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Strigiformes |
| Family: | Strigidae |
| Genus: | Otus |
| Species: | O. mirus |
| Binomial name | |
| Otus mirus | |
It is one of the three montane scops owl along with the Luzon scops owl and Mindoro scops owl.
EBird describes the bird as "A fairly small owl of montane forest on Mindanao. Dark brown on the upperparts, head, and chest, and pale gray on the lower chest and belly with black markings. Note the grayish crescents between the orange-yellow eyes. Occurs together with Giant scops owl and Everett's scops owl, but Mindanao is much smaller than Giant and slightly smaller and darker than Everett’s with shorter ear tufts. Song consists of two lazily-given whistled notes, “wiiii weeuu,” the second note slightly downslurred."[3]
Diet is llittle known but assumed to be insects based on the diet of other scops owls.
Breeding is presumed to occur around Feb to March as specimens with enlarged gonads were taken during this time. [4]
It occupies montane mossy forest above 1,000 meters above sea level.
IUCN has assessed this bird as near threatened with population believed to be decreasing. As it occurs in rugged and inaccessible mountains, this has allowed a large portion of its habitat to remain intact relative to lowland forest. However, there it is still affected by habitat loss through deforestation, mining, land conversion and slash-and-burn - just not to the same extent as lowland forest.
It is found in multiple protected areas such as Mount Apo, Kitanglad Mountain Range, Mt. Hilong-hilong but like all areas in the Philippines protection is lax. [5]
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