The Andaman masked owl (''Tyto deroepstorffi'') is a

barn owl The barn owls, owls in the genus '' Tyto'', are the most widely distributed genus of owls in the world. They are medium-sized owls with large heads and characteristic heart-shaped faces. They have long, strong legs with powerful talons. The ter ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the southern

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago, made up of 200 islands, in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a mari ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

.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 In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of the common barn owl ('' Tyto alba''), it is recognized by others as a species in its own right.

Taxonomy

The species was named by

Allan Octavian Hume Allan Octavian Hume, Order of the Bath, CB Indian Civil Service, ICS (4 June 1829 – 31 July 1912) was a British political reformer, ornithologist, civil servant and botanist who worked in British Raj, British India and was the founding spirit ...

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 Ross Island Penal Colony, Andaman penal colony in India, where he was shot dead by a convict. He studied the languages of Andaman and Nico ...

who shot it at Aberdeen, Andamans. Hume placed it in the genus ''Strix''. Some authors consider this bird to be a

of the barn owl/

western barn owl The western barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is a species of Tyto, barn owl ''Tyto'' native to Europe, southwestern Asia, and Africa. It was formerly considered a subspecies group together with barn owls native to other parts of the world, but this clas ...

''(Tyto alba)'', or the

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 genus ''Tyto''. The cosmopolitan barn o ...

(''Tyto javanica''), but König, in his ''Owls of the World'', recognized it as a distinct species; one distinguishing feature is that it lacks the greyish veil, speckled with black and white, that all other races of ''Tyto alba'' / ''Tyto javanica'' possess.

Description

The Andaman masked owl has a length of between from head to tail, with the tail being from its base. The longest primary measures 25-26 cm. It is almost uniformly dark reddish-brown above, with some speckling of buffish-orange, and a more yellowish torso than the common barn owl. The facial disc is pale, reddish-buff with a distinctive orange-brown margin. The eyes are blackish and the beak is 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.

Distribution and habitat

The Andaman masked owl is known only from the southern

. It occurs on the coastal plain, in fields and gardens with trees, and in human settlements. It is not thought to be migratory.

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.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q489866 Tyto Birds described in 1875 Birds of the Andaman Islands Endemic fauna of the Andaman Islands Endemic birds of India