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Owl Evolution
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Owl
Evolution
Archaeopteryx
Late Jurassic 150 mya
Late
Jurassic
Period
Many consider Archaeopteryx, which lived approximately 150 million years ago, to be the first bird. It is actually a transitional species between the birds we see now and predatory dinosaurs like Deinonychus.
Berruornis and Ogygoptynx
Paleocene epoch 60-57 mya
Paleocene Epoch
It was a warm and humid world. During the epoch, birds started to diversify, occupying new niches. By then, most modern bird species had appeared.
Owls were evolved to be fiercely birds of prey. Therefore, their wings and beaks were evolved.
The owl lineages Berruornis and Ogygoptynx demonstrated that owls were already existing at that time. During that period, the Strigiformes transformed into ecological niches that are now mostly occupied by other groups of birds. However, the owls we know today evolved their distinctive morphology and adaptations at the same time.
What does the fossil show?
Tyto alba, or Barn-owls
Neogene 23 - 2.5 mya
Neogene
Period
Barn-owls were the dominant owl group in Eurasia; the distribution of fossil and modern owl lineages suggests that their decline is contemporaneous with the evolution of the different major lineages of true owls, which appears to have occurred primarily in Eurasia. In the Americas, however, there was an expansion of immigrant lineages of ancestral typical owls.
Ornimegalonyx, or cuban giant owls
Late Pleistocene Period
10k - 120k years ago
Late Pleistocene Period
Cuban giant owls were two to three times the size of present Barn Owls and twice the size of modern Great Horned Owls. They are believed to have eaten animals as large as the giant sloth and rodents as large as the capybara, which can grow to be over 4 feet long.
Special Traits
Special Traits
Cuban giant owls seems to have very large and powerful legs and feet. This lends support to the idea that they were strong runners, like turkey. They would only fly when it was very necessary because during Pleistocene Period, there were numerous ice ages.
The lovely and quite small burrowing owl, the only surviving owl tightly connected to the ground, most closely resembles the Cuban giant owl. This suggests similar adaptations to terrestrial life, but not a close phylogenetic relationship.
Modern Owls
Modern Owls
All owls are carnivorous birds of prey that eat insects, small rodents, and lagomorphs as part of their diet. Some owls have evolved specifically to hunt fish. They are incredibly skilled hunters in their particular settings. Because owls may be found in nearly every corner of the world and in a wide range of ecosystems, their hunting abilities and attributes differ slightly from species to species, however the majority of qualities are similar by all.
Hearing
Owls have unique hearing abilities and ear shapes that assist them in hunting. Some genera are known for having asymmetrical ear locations on the skull. Owls' ears can be either internal or external, and both are asymmetrical. The owl's asymmetry does not appear to extend to the middle or internal ear. The owl's asymmetrical ear placement on the skull allows it to locate its prey very precisely when the sound gets to one of its ears tenth of a second before the other one.
Flight
They have huge wings relative to their body size, which enables them to fly silently to catch preys more easily. A soft texture covers the surface of the flight feathers, which absorbs the sound of the wing moving. These distinctive features suppress noise frequencies above 2k Hz, lowering the sound intensity released below the typical hearing spectrum of the owl's typical prey, as well as the owl's own best hearing range.
Vision
Owls belong to a tiny group of nocturnal birds that do not use echolocation to aid them in flight in low-light conditions. Owls are recognized for having unusually wide eyes compared to their skulls. The owl's eye has evolved into a tubular shape as a result of the growth of an extremely large eye in a relatively tiny skull. They are unable to move their eyes in any direction because they are stuck into these sclerotic tubes. Owls twist their heads to scan their environment rather than moving their eyes. Owls' heads can rotate to around a 270-degree angle, allowing them to view behind them without having to move their torso.