Cretan_owl

Cretan owl

Cretan owl

Extinct species of bird

The Cretan owl (Athene cretensis) is an extinct species of owl from the Pleistocene of the island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean. It was first named by P.D.M. Weesie in a paper in 1982. In life, it would have been at least 60 cm tall, considerably larger than the 22 cm long little owl (Athene noctua) and appears to have been terrestrially adapted, with relatively short wings and long legs (though they were proportionally shorter than those of the burrowing owl). Its primary prey was likely the endemic mouse species Mus minotaurus, as evidenced by the numerous owl pellets containing it recovered from the caves from which the bones of A. cretensis were found.[1][2]

Quick Facts Cretan owl Temporal range: Pleistocene, Scientific classification ...

References

  1. [1]
    P.D.M. Weesie A Pleistocene endemic island form within the genus Athene: Athene cretensis n.sp. (Aves, Strigiformes) from Crete Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen B, 85 (3) (1982), pp. 323-336
  2. [2]
    M. Pavia, C. Mourer-Chauviré An overview of the Genus Athene in the Pleistocene of the Mediterranean Islands, with the Description of Athene trinacriae n.sp. (Aves: Strigidae) Z. Zhou, F. Zhang (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Symposium of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, Beijing Science Press (2002), pp. 13-27


Stub icon

This Greece-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Stub icon

This prehistoric bird article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Cretan_owl, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.