Barbuda barn owl
| Barbuda barn owl | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||
| Young Pleistocene to Holocene (?) | ||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||
|
||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||
| Tyto neddi | ||||||||
| Steadman & Hilgartner , 1999 |
The barbuda barn owl ( Tyto neddi ) is an extinct barn owl species from the Lesser Antilles . It is only known from fossil remains that were unearthed on Barbuda in 1983 . The species epithet honors Morris Nedd, a Barbuda naturalist who helped the team of paleontologists who discovered this species.
features
Tyto neddi is only known of six bones that were found on January 19-20, 1983 by David William Steadman , Gregory K. Pregill , David Robert Watters, Ronald I. Crombie and James P. Dean in a cave at Rat Pocket at the Gun Shop Cliff in Two Foot Bay on Barbuda . The holotype is a right femur . The material identified as paratype includes a left coracoid , a left first toe bone from the first toe phalanx, a left second toe bone from the first toe peg, a left third toe bone from the second toe peg, and a toe phalanx from a juvenile bird. The Barbuda barn owl was slightly smaller than Tyto ostologa of Hispaniola, but larger than Tyto noeli of Cuba. The phalanges of the toes were relatively more robust than those of Tyto ostologa .
Distribution, evolution and way of life
During the turn from the Pleistocene to the Holocene , Barbuda comprised a late Quaternary avifauna with 15 bird taxa that are no longer found on the island today. Among them were three owl taxa: the rabbit owl ( Athene cunicularia ), an undescribed form that probably represents the North American barn owl ( Tyto alba pratincola ), and the barbuda barn owl. Since Barbuda was connected to Antigua to form a large island during the last Ice Age , it is possible that Tyto neddi also occurred on Antigua.
The fossil material available about this species is insufficient to judge whether Tyto neddi is descended from one of the larger barn owl species from the Greater Antilles or whether the species developed autochthonously from a smaller species from the Lesser Antilles.
The short toes of the Barbuda barn owl (compared to those of the species Tyto ostologa ) suggest that their diet consisted of rodents, especially rice rats and tree rats .
die out
The extinction of the various large species of barn owls from the Antilles is likely related to the disappearance of their preferred prey. Due to the poor documentation of the stratigraphy and / or the chronology of the fossil barn owl species of the West Indies , it is uncertain whether most of the species survived into the Holocene or whether they became extinct in the late Pleistocene. Extensive human-induced habitat changes have occurred in Barbuda and Antigua in both prehistoric and historical times. However, the presumed prey of the Barbuda barn owl, the rice rats, existed on Barbuda and Antigua until the Holocene, which is proven by bone finds in archaeological sites. This would suggest that the Barbuda barn owl might have survived into the first or second millennium AD.
literature
- David W. Steadman & William B. Hilgartner: A New Species of Extinct Barn Owl (Aves: Tyto) from Barbuda, Lesser Antilles In: Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. Number 89, 1999. pp. 75-83
- Julian Pender Hume, Michael P. Walters: Extinct Birds , p. 193, A & C Black 2012, ISBN 140815725X