Strix aluco
The tawny owl, also called the brown owl, is a stocky, medium-sized owl in the family Strigidae. It is commonly found in woodlands across Europe, as well as western Siberia, and has seven recognized subspecies. The tawny owl's underparts are pale with dark streaks, whilst its upper body may be either brown or grey. The tawny owl typically makes its nest in a tree hole where it can protect its eggs and young against potential predators. It is non-migratory and highly territorial: as a result, when young birds grow up and leave the parental nest, if they cannot find a vacant territory to claim as their own, they will often starve.

Martin Mecnarowski ( http://www.photomecan.eu/ ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- tawny owlPBDB
- Sits inside
- StrixPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, insectivorePBDB, for Strigidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Strigidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Strigiformes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Strigidae
- Mass
- 524 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 645 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
6 occurrences of Strix aluco on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
6 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Strix aluco and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Strix aluco and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
221 taxa- Corvus corax4 sites
- Athene noctua3 sites
- Columba livia3 sites
- Columba oenas3 sites
- Corvus corone3 sites
- Coturnix coturnix3 sites
- Microtus3 sites
- Myotis3 sites
- Pyrrhocorax graculus3 sites
- Alectoris graeca2 sites
- Apodemus2 sites
- Apodemus mystacinus2 sites
- Arvicola2 sites
- Bos primigenius2 sites
- Bufo bufo2 sites
- Canis lupus2 sites
- Capra ibex2 sites
- Cervus elaphus2 sites
- Circus macrourus2 sites
- Columba palumbus2 sites
- Crocidura suaveolens2 sites
- Dama dama2 sites
- Equus2 sites
- Erinaceus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Strix aluco, 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
6 references- New Neanderthal remains from Mani peninsula, Southern Greece: The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic cave site1
- A catalogue of British Pleistocene birds identified by Colin JO Harrison and stored in the Natural History Museum, London, (Department of Palaeontology)1
- Bird remains from Curata and Bordu Mare caves (Romania)1
- Une faune tres diversifee du Pleistocene inferieur de la Sierra de Quibas (province de Murcia, Espagne)1
- Remarks on the Middle and Lower Pleistocene vertebrate fauna in the Petralona Cave1
- La grotte de l'Observatoire à Monaco1
Each of the 6 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 content2
Picture of Strix aluco
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Martin Mecnarowski ( http://www.photomecan.eu/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Tawny owl”
- 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 itStrix through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758