The Guatemalan pygmy owl (''Glaucidium cobanense'') is a small "

typical owl The true owls or typical owls (family Strigidae) are one of the two generally accepted families of owls, the other being the barn owls (Tytonidae). This large family comprises 230 living or recently extinct species in 24 genera. The typical owl ...

" in subfamily Surniinae. However, some taxonomic systems consider it to be a subspecies of

northern pygmy owl The northern pygmy owl (''Glaucidium californicum'') is a small owl native to western North America. Taxonomy Some taxonomic authorities, including the International Ornithologists' Union, separate this species from the mountain pygmy owl, the ...

(''G. gnoma'').HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved 25 August 2021 It is found in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

, Guatemala, and Honduras.

Taxonomy and systematics

The Guatemalan pygmy owl's taxonomy is unsettled. The

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

(IOC) and

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

(HBW) consider it a distinct species. The North American Classification Committee (NACC) of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

rejected that definition and treats it as a subspecies of northern pygmy owl.R. Terry Chesser, Richard C. Banks, F. Keith Barker, Carla Cicero, Jon L. Dunn, Andrew W. Kratter, Irby J. Lovette, Pamela C. Rasmussen, J. V. Remsen, Jr., James D. Rising, Douglas F. Stotz, and Kevin Winker. "Fifty-fourth supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union ''Check-list of North American Birds''". ''The Auk'' 2013, vol. 130:1-14 retrieved March 7, 2022 The

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

follows the NACC treatment.

Description

The Guatemalan pygmy owl is about long. Adults have two color morphs, one mostly rufous and the other gray-brown, though there are some intergrades between them. The rufous morph is more common. The head and upperparts are the basal color with paler spots, and the tail is the same color with four paler bands on its underside. The nape has a pair of black and white marks that resemble eyes. The rufous morph has small buffy spots on its forecrown. The breasts are pale with heavy streaking of the basal color. It has an ill-defined

facial disc In ornithology, the facial disc is the concave collection of feathers on the face of some birds—most notably owls—surrounding the eyes. The concavity of the facial disc forms a circular paraboloid that collects sound waves and directs those wa ...

with pale "eyebrows" and "moustaches". Its beak, eyes, and feet are yellow.Holt, D. W. and J. L. Petersen (2020). Northern Pygmy-Owl (''Glaucidium gnoma''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.nopowl.01 retrieved March 7, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The Guatemalan pygmy owl is found from Mexico's

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...

state through Guatemala into Honduras. It inhabits the edges and openings of several montane landscapes including pine savannah, pine-oak forest, and

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud ...

. It is usually found above of elevation.

Behavior

Movement

The Guatemalan pygmy owl is believed to be mostly resident but some seasonal elevational movement is possible.

Feeding

The Guatemalan pygmy owl's diet and hunting habits have not been separately described from those of the northern pygmy owl as a whole. That species takes a very wide variety of prey including reptiles, mammals, birds, and

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s. It is primarily a daytime hunter and probably hunts into the evening as well.

Breeding

The Guatemalan pygmy owl's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

has not been separately described from that of the northern pygmy owl as a whole. That species appears to be seasonally monogamous and defends a nesting territory. It nests in tree cavities, both natural and made by woodpeckers. The cavity may be lined with feathers and strips of soft bark. Clutch sizes of two to seven have been reported. Incubation length and time to fledging have not been well defined. The female alone incubates eggs and broods nestlings; the male does most of the provisioning.

Vocalization

The Guatemalan pygmy owl's call is "a rapid series of ''toot'' notes...with little or no pause...''toot-toot-toot-toot'toot-toot'toot-toot...''."

Status

The IUCN has assessed the Guatemalan pygmy owl as being of

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...

, though its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. No specific threats have been identified. It is considered locally uncommon throughout its range.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1552922 Guatemalan pygmy owl Birds of Guatemala Guatemalan pygmy owl Guatemalan pygmy owl