Tyto melitensis (German: Malta Barn Owl) is a fossil owl species from the barn owl family . It was described as Stryx melitensis by Richard Lydekker in 1891 , but placed in the genus Tyto by Pierce Brodkorb in 1970 . The fossil material was discovered in an unknown cave deposit and consists of a single left thigh bone (femur), the age of which is dated to the Young Pleistocene . The incomplete bone has a length of 54 mm and a shaft width of 4 mm. Compared to the femur of the short-eared owl ( Asio flammeus ), the thighbone is longer and slimmer. The comparison bone of the tawny owl ( Strix aluco ) is thicker and much more curved. The large rolling mound is more inclined inwards. The septum is less developed. Some authors consider Tyto melitensis either a synonym or a subspecies of the barn owl ( Tyto alba ).
literature
Richard Lydekker: Catalog of the fossil birds in the British Museum (Natural History) . London, 1891: p. 13.
Jirí Mlíkovský: Cenozoic Birds of the World. Part 1: Europe . Ninox Press, Prague 2002. ISBN 80-901105-3-8 . ( Online ; PDF; 2.8 MB)
Individual evidence
^ Pierce Brodkorb: Two fossil owls from the Aquitanian of France . Quarterly Journal of the Florida Academy of Sciences 32, 1970: p. 159-160.
↑ J. Mlíkovský: A new barn owl (Aves: Strigidae) from the early Miocene of Germany, with comments on the fossil history of the Tytoninae. In: Journal of Ornithology Number 139, 1998: p. 247-261. ( Online ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; PDF; 1.2 MB)@1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nm.cz
↑ C. Mourer-Chauviré, JA Alcover, S. Moyà & J. Pons: Une nouvelle forme insulaire d'effraie géante, Tyto balearica n.sp. (Aves, Strigiformes) du Plio-Pléistocène des Baléares . In: Géobios 13, 1980: p. 803-811.
