New Type of Owl Discovered!

Dr Manuel Schweizer led a team of ornithologists that has discovered a new species. The new owl, newly named the Desert Tawny Owl, belongs to the earless owl genus, the Strix. Strix hadorami is the official scientific name for this owl, named after the Israeli ornithologist, Hadoram Shirihai.

This owl lives in desert areas of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Jordan, and Yemen. The Desert Tawny Owl likes rocky areas with ravines, lots of cliffs and caves for nesting and that has some vegetation.

 Image credit: © Thomas Krumenacker, www.krumenacker.de.

After an analysis of the pellets it looks like the diet of strix hadorami is mostly rodents, small insectivores such as shrews, gerbils, mice, etc, arthropods (scorpions, beetles) and geckos.

The Arabian population of these birds seems to be at about 3,000 pairs and in Israel about 200 pairs.