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Barn owl (California, USA) (1 Viewer)

M

marcsantacurz

Well-known member
Maybe this should be posted to the taxonomy group? Anyway, I thought I'd start here.

I was using AllAboutBirds.org to ID the attached photo (Santa Cruz, California, USA, Sept 21, 2018). They classify it as Tyto Alba (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/overview). And my National Geographic field guide (7th ed) also shows them as Tyto Alba.

Wikipedia lists it otherwise in the family Tyto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyto) and says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_barn_owl) "Based on DNA evidence, König, Weick & Becking (2009) recognised the American Barn Owl (T. furcata) and the Curaçao Barn Owl (T. bargei) as separate species.[1]"

So, what is the correct classification of an American Barn Owl?

[1] König, Claus; Weick, Friedhelm; Becking, Jan-Hendrik (2009). Owls of the World. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 46–48. ISBN 978-1-4081-0884-0.
 

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Most birders in America follow the classification of the American Ornithological Society Checklist of North American Birds, which includes all Barn Owls in North America, except for a form on Hispaniola, as Tyto alba.
 
rkj said:
...., except for a form on Hispaniola, as Tyto alba.
Click to expand...
IOC split American Barn Owl a year or two ago; an important part of the reasoning is that American Barn Owls are genetically much more closely related to those Hispaniolan Barn Owls, than they are to nominate (European) Barn Owls. Predictable from geography, though less obvious from plumage appearance.

So you're left with the choice of (a) lumping Hispaniolan into 'World Barn Owl', or else (b) splitting American (and some others) off from European. Since the Hispaniolan birds are quite distinct on plumage, (a) isn't a good option, which leaves (b). It is very likely that the AOS Checklist will take up the split in the next year or two, they just tend to be a bit slower (tho' not always) than IOC in taking up new evidence.
 
There is a third option of course, which is maintaining the status quo. Nothing in the Biological Species Concept requires monophlyly at the species level and the NACC has examples of such taxa. The NACC considered this spli in 2018 and it did not pass. Here the comments: http://checklist.aou.org/nacc/proposals/comments/2018_C_comments_web.html#2018-C-13
Andy
Nutcracker said:
IOC split American Barn Owl a year or two ago; an important part of the reasoning is that American Barn Owls are genetically much more closely related to those Hispaniolan Barn Owls, than they are to nominate (European) Barn Owls. Predictable from geography, though less obvious from plumage appearance.

So you're left with the choice of (a) lumping Hispaniolan into 'World Barn Owl', or else (b) splitting American (and some others) off from European. Since the Hispaniolan birds are quite distinct on plumage, (a) isn't a good option, which leaves (b). It is very likely that the AOS Checklist will take up the split in the next year or two, they just tend to be a bit slower (tho' not always) than IOC in taking up new evidence.
Click to expand...
 
Seems a bit of an odd attitude to me - why allow it at species level but not other levels? If they want to do it to maintain traditional nomenclature over science (which is how it appears to me), might as well put whales back into fish . . . :eek!:
 
Kratter said:
There is a third option of course, which is maintaining the status quo. Nothing in the Biological Species Concept requires monophlyly at the species level and the NACC has examples of such taxa. The NACC considered this spli in 2018 and it did not pass. Here the comments: http://checklist.aou.org/nacc/proposals/comments/2018_C_comments_web.html#2018-C-13
Andy
Click to expand...

Andy,
I do not have access to it at the moment, but I recall that the printed version of HBW had a recounting of an experiment where American and Australian barn owls were placed together on an island and failed to recognize each other as potential partners and therefore died out?

Niels
 
marcsantacurz said:
Maybe this should be posted to the taxonomy group? Anyway, I thought I'd start here.

I was using AllAboutBirds.org to ID the attached photo (Santa Cruz, California, USA, Sept 21, 2018). They classify it as Tyto Alba (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/overview). And my National Geographic field guide (7th ed) also shows them as Tyto Alba.

Wikipedia lists it otherwise in the family Tyto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyto) and says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_barn_owl) "Based on DNA evidence, König, Weick & Becking (2009) recognised the American Barn Owl (T. furcata) and the Curaçao Barn Owl (T. bargei) as separate species.[1]"

So, what is the correct classification of an American Barn Owl?

[1] König, Claus; Weick, Friedhelm; Becking, Jan-Hendrik (2009). Owls of the World. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 46–48. ISBN 978-1-4081-0884-0.
Click to expand...
,"Tyto" is a genus, not a family, and the second word in a species' scientific name, the species epithet, is ALWAYS uncapitalized.
 
Nutcracker said:
IOC split American Barn Owl a year or two ago; an important part of the reasoning is that American Barn Owls are genetically much more closely related to those Hispaniolan Barn Owls, than they are to nominate (European) Barn Owls. Predictable from geography, though less obvious from plumage appearance.
Click to expand...

I wasn't expecting such an exciting series of replies!

Thank you for explaining the origins of this split. As the novice I am, I am not not familiar with all these national and international bodies. I'll stick with Cornell (https://www.allaboutbirds.org, https://birdsna.org) for now.
 
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