Sceloglaux albifacies
The laughing owl, also known as whēkau, laughing jackass, or white-faced owl, is an extinct species of owl that was endemic to New Zealand. It was widespread when European settlers arrived, and its scientific description was published in 1845. The species declined rapidly thereafter and was largely or completely extinct by 1914. The laughing owl was classified in the monotypic genus Sceloglaux by Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848, a name meaning "scoundrel owl" that may have referred to its unusual, mischievous-sounding calls. Genetic studies have subsequently indicated that it is more closely related to the boobook owls of the genus Ninox.
Henry Charles Clarke Wright · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- laughing owlPBDB
- Sits inside
- SceloglauxPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, insectivorePBDB, for Strigidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Strigidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Strigiformes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Strigidae
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
9 occurrences of Sceloglaux albifacies on record, most of them in the Holocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
9 occurrences- Pleistocene21%
- Holocene79%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Sceloglaux albifacies has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Sceloglaux albifacies and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Sceloglaux albifacies and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
150 taxa- Coturnix novaezelandiae8 sites
- Cyanoramphus7 sites
- Coenocorypha aucklandica6 sites
- Gallinula hodgenorum6 sites
- Gallirallus australis6 sites
- Pelecanoides urinatrix6 sites
- Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae6 sites
- Turnagra capensis6 sites
- Aegotheles novaezealandiae5 sites
- Anthus novaeseelandiae5 sites
- Callaeas cinereus5 sites
- Euryapteryx geranoides5 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae5 sites
- Pachyornis elephantopus5 sites
- Sphenodon5 sites
- Strigops habroptila5 sites
- Tadorna variegata5 sites
- Anas chlorotis4 sites
- Apteryx4 sites
- Apteryx australis4 sites
- Carduelis carduelis4 sites
- Chenonetta finschi4 sites
- Corvus moriorum4 sites
- Falco novaeseelandiae4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Sceloglaux albifacies, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
4 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand5
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand2
- Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand1
- Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in Takaka Valley and on Takaka Hill, northwest Nelson, South Island, New Zealand1
Each of the 9 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Sceloglaux albifacies
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Henry Charles Clarke Wright
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sceloglaux albifacies was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSceloglaux through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gray 1844)