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Genus of birds From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
| Tyto Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
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| African grass owl, Tyto capensis The "grass owls" are two rather long-legged species of Tyto. | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Strigiformes |
| Family: | Tytonidae |
| Subfamily: | Tytoninae |
| Genus: | Tyto Billberg, 1828 |
| Type species | |
| Strix flammea[1] = Strix alba Linnaeus, 1766 | |
| Species | |
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see text | |
| Synonyms | |
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The genus Tyto was introduced in 1828 by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg with the western barn owl as the type species.[2][3] The name is from the Ancient Greek tutō meaning "owl".[4]
The barn owl (Tyto alba) was formerly considered to have a global distribution with around 28 subspecies.[5] 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).[6] This arrangement is followed here. Some support for this split was provided by a molecular phylogenetic study by Vera Uva and collaborators published in 2018 that compared the DNA sequences of three mitochondrial and one nuclear loci.[7] This split has not been adopted by other taxonomic authorities such as the Clements Checklist of Birds of the World maintained by members of Cornell University or by the list maintained by BirdLife International that is used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.[8][9]
The cladogram below is based on the 2018 phylogenetic study. The Andaman masked owl (Tyto deroepstorffi) and Itombwe owl (Tyto prigoginei) were not sampled. The Manus masked owl (Tyto manusi) was embedded in a clade with subspecies of the Australian masked owl.[7]
| Tyto |
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Throughout their evolutionary history, Tyto owls have shown a better capability to colonize islands than other owls. Several such island forms have become extinct, some long ago, but some in comparatively recent times. A number of insular barn owls from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean were very large or truly gigantic species.
Seventeen species are recognized:[6]
| Image | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Greater sooty owl | Tyto tenebricosa | Australia |
 | Lesser sooty owl | Tyto multipunctata | Australia |
 | Minahasa masked owl | Tyto inexspectata | Sulawesi, Indonesia |
| Taliabu masked owl | Tyto nigrobrunnea | Sula Islands, Maluku, Indonesia | |
| Moluccan masked owl | Tyto sororcula | south Moluccas of Indonesia | |
| Manus masked owl | Tyto manusi | Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands | |
| Golden masked owl | Tyto aurantia | the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea | |
 | Australian masked owl | Tyto novaehollandiae | Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia. |
 | Sulawesi masked owl | Tyto rosenbergii | the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Sangihe and Peleng |
 | Red owl | Tyto soumagnei | Madagascar |
 | Western barn owl | Tyto alba | Eurasia and Africa. |
.jpg) | American barn owl | Tyto furcata | the Americas |
 | Eastern barn owl | Tyto javanica | southeast Asia and Australasia. |
 | Andaman masked owl | Tyto deroepstorffi | southern Andaman Islands |
 | Ashy-faced owl | Tyto glaucops | Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). |
| African grass owl | Tyto capensis | southern Congo and northern Angola to the central coast of Mozambique and the other centred on South Africa from the Western Cape north to the southern extremities of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique up to Kenya and Ethiopia. |
 | Eastern grass owl | Tyto longimembris | eastern, southern and southeast Asia, parts of New Guinea, Australia (mainly in Queensland) and the western Pacific |
| Itombwe owl | Tyto prigoginei | Itombwe Mountains in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo | |
A number of owl fossils were at one time assigned to the present genus, but are nowadays placed elsewhere. While there are clear differences in osteology between typical owls and barn owls, there has been parallel evolution to some degree and thus isolated fossil bones cannot necessarily be assigned to either family without thorough study. Notably, the genus Strix has been misapplied by many early scientists as a "wastebasket taxon" for many owls, including Tyto.[12]
They are darker on the back than the front, usually an orange-brown colour, the front being a paler version of the back or mottled, although there is considerable variation even amongst species. Tyto owls have a divided, heart-shaped facial disc, and lack the ear-like tufts of feathers found in many other owls. Tyto owls tend to be larger than bay owls. The name tyto (τυτώ) is onomatopeic Greek for owl.
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