The cinnabar boobook (''Ninox ios''), also known as the cinnabar hawk-owl, is a hawk-owl

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 island of

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It was described as a new species to science by American

ornithologist Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

Pamela C. Rasmussen Pamela Cecile Rasmussen (born October 16, 1959) is an American ornithologist and expert on Asian birds. She was formerly a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and is based at the Michigan State University. She ...

in 1999 based on a single specimen collected by Frank Rozendaal from

Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park is a 2,871 km2 (1,108 mi2) national park on Minahassa Peninsula on Sulawesi island, Indonesia. Formerly known as Dumoga Bone National Park, it was established in 1991 and was renamed in honour of Na ...

Minahassa Peninsula The Minahasa Peninsula, also spelled Minahassa, or the Northern Sulawesi Peninsula is one of the four principal peninsulas on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It stretches north from the central part of the island, before turning to the east and f ...

, northern Sulawesi, in 1985. Subsequently, it has also been observed in

Lore Lindu National Park Lore Lindu National Park is a protected area of forest on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, in the province of Central Sulawesi. The List of national parks of Indonesia, Indonesian national park is 2,180 km2 covering both lowland and mont ...

in central Sulawesi, greatly expanding the known habitat range. The cinnabar boobook is small with a total length of . It has a relatively long tail and narrow pointed wings. The four known records of the species indicate it is a

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

forest-dwelling species living at mid-altitudes of . Otherwise, very little is known of its habits. Based on morphological similarities with

owlet-nightjar Owlet-nightjars are small crepuscular birds related to the nightjars and frogmouths. Most are native to New Guinea, but some species extend to Australia, the Moluccas, and New Caledonia. A flightless species from New Zealand is extinct. There is ...

s, Rasmussen suggests the cinnabar boobook may be an

insectivore file:Common brown robberfly with prey.jpg, A Asilidae, robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivore, carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the Entomophagy ...

and prey on

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s in flight.

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet.
Ninox Endemic birds of Sulawesi Birds described in 1999 {{Strigiformes-stub