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Tyto

Tyto is a genus of owls in the family Tytonidae. Depending on the species and the locality, common names include barn owl, common barn owl, grass owl, sooty owl, masked owl, field owl or simply owl. It is the most widely distributed genus of owls in the world and one of the most widespread of all genera of birds, living almost everywhere except for polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, some Indonesian islands and some Pacific Islands.

Taxonomy
The genus Tyto was introduced in 1828 by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg with the Tyto alba as the type species. The name is from the Ancient Greek tutō meaning "owl". The barn owl (Tyto alba) was formerly considered to have a global distribution with around 28 subspecies. In the list of birds maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) the genus is now split into four species: the western barn owl (Tyto alba) (10 subspecies), the American barn owl (Tyto furcata) (12 subspecies), the eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica) (7 subspecies) and the Andaman masked owl (Tyto deroepstorffi). This arrangement is followed here. Support for this split was provided by a molecular phylogenetic study by Vera Uva and collaborators published in 2018 that compared the DNA sequences of three mitochondrial and one nuclear loci. This split was eventually adopted by other taxonomic authorities such as the American Ornithological Society and the Clements Checklist of Birds of the World maintained by members of Cornell University in 2024, but has yet to be accepted by the list maintained by BirdLife International that is used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The cladogram below is based on the 2018 phylogenetic study. The Andaman masked owl (Tyto deroepstorffi) and Itombwe owl (Tyto prigoginei) were not sampled. The Manus masked owl (Tyto manusi) was embedded in a clade with subspecies of the Australian masked owl. • Tyto richae (Early Pliocene of South Africa) • Tyto sp. 1 • Tyto sp. 2 ;Late prehistoric extinctions usually known from subfossil remains: • Mussau barn owl (Tyto cf. novaehollandiae) found in Mussau • New Ireland greater barn owl (Tyto cf. novaehollandiae) found in New Ireland • New Ireland lesser barn owl (Tyto cf. alba/aurantiaca) found in New Ireland • Tyto antiqua (Late Eocene/Early Oligocene of Quercy? - Early Miocene of France) was a barn owl of the prehistoric genus Prosybris; this taxon might be a nomen nudum, as the species was originally described in Strix, this requires confirmation • "TMT 164", a distal left tarsometatarsus of a supposed Tyto from the Middle Miocene Grive-Saint-Alban (France); might also belong in Prosybris, as it is similar to Tyto antiqua ==Description==
Description
They are darker on the back than the front, usually an orange-brown colour, the front being a paler version of the back or mottled, although there is considerable variation even amongst species. Tyto owls have a divided, heart-shaped facial disc, and lack the ear-like tufts of feathers found in many other owls. Tyto owls tend to be larger than bay owls. The name tyto (τυτώ) is onomatopeic Greek for owl. ==Footnotes==
Source: Wikipedia ↗
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