The Timor boobook (''Ninox fusca'') is a species of

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

in the family

Strigidae 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 ow ...

. It is found on

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, al ...

, Roma,

Leti Leti may refer to: * Leti, Chakwal, a village and Union Council in Pakistan * Leti Islands, Maluku, Indonesia ** Leti (island), one of the Leti islands in Maluku, Indonesia * Leti language, a language in Indonesia * Leti language (Cameroon), a lan ...

and

Semau Semau, also known as ''Pusmau'' and ''Pasar Pusmau,'' is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is located 20 miles off the harbor of Kupang. The inhabitants of Samau are the Helong people, who some believe are the original inha ...

Islands in the eastern

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make u ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. It has a more grey-brown plumage with no red tinge, unlike other subspecies. It has grey streaks on its belly and white spots on its secondaries, inner wing-coverts and nape. It was described by French ornithologist

Louis Pierre Vieillot Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collect ...

in 1817 as ''Strix fusca''. Austrian ornithologist

Carl Eduard Hellmayr Carl Eduard Hellmayr (29 January 1878 in Vienna, Austria – 24 February 1944 in Orselina, Switzerland) was an Austrian ornithologist. Biography Hellmayr was born in Vienna and studied at the University of Vienna, although he did not complete ...

noted that it closely resembled the

Australian boobook The Australian boobook (''Ninox boobook''), which is known in some regions as the mopoke, is a species of owl native to mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, the island of Timor, and the Sunda Islands. Described by John Latham in 1801, it wa ...

and concluded it was probably a subspecies of the latter, and Mayr classified it as a subspecies in 1943. Genetic and call analysis show it to be markedly divergent to the Australian populations of the Australian boobook, leading Gwee and colleagues to suggest it be reclassified as a separate species. Its calls are shorter and more frequent than the Australian boobook. It was reclassified as a distinct species in 2019.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q60774270 Timor boobook Birds of Timor Timor boobook Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot