Strix varia
The barred owl, also known as the northern barred owl, striped owl or, more informally, hoot owl or eight hooter, is a North American large species of owl. A member of the true owl family, Strigidae, they belong to the genus Strix, which is also the origin of the family's name under Linnaean taxonomy. Barred owls are largely native to eastern North America, but have expanded their range to the west coast of North America where they are considered invasive. Mature forests are their preferred habitat, but they can also acclimatise to various gradients of open woodlands. Their diet consists mainly of small mammals, but this species is an opportunistic predator and is known to prey upon other small vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, and amphibians, as well as a variety of invertebrates.

Mdf · 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
- barred 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
Time the record covers
At least 1.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
15 occurrences of Strix varia 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
15 occurrences- Pleistocene87%
- Holocene13%
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 Strix varia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Strix varia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Strix varia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
458 taxa- Meleagris gallopavo12 sites
- Colinus virginianus9 sites
- Equus9 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus9 sites
- Dasypus bellus8 sites
- Podilymbus podiceps8 sites
- Ursus americanus8 sites
- Aenocyon dirus7 sites
- Falco sparverius7 sites
- Haliaeetus leucocephalus7 sites
- Mammut americanum7 sites
- Procyon lotor7 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis7 sites
- Tremarctos floridanus7 sites
- Urocyon cinereoargenteus7 sites
- Buteo lineatus6 sites
- Didelphis virginiana6 sites
- Ectopistes migratorius6 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala6 sites
- Holmesina septentrionalis6 sites
- Megascops asio6 sites
- Oryzomys palustris6 sites
- Palaeolama mirifica6 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Strix varia, 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
12 references- The avifauna of the Pleistocene in Florida3
- Avian community, climate, and sea-level changes in the Plio-Pleistocene of the Florida Peninsula2
- A middle Pleistocene bird community from Saint Lucie County, Florida1
- Fossil birds of the Ardis Local Fauna, Late Pleistocene, South Carolina1
- Taphonomy of a late Pleistocene carnivore den, Dade County, Florida1
- A late Pleistocene avifauna from northwestern Alabama1
- Evidence of a Boreal Avifauna in Middle Tennessee during the Late Pleistocene1
- The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna of Reddick, Florida1
- A Pleistocene avifauna from Rock Spring, Florida1
- Pleistocene birds from Eichelberger Cave1
- Animal remains from Ohio rock shelters1
- The former occurrence of the Mississippi kite in Ohio1
Each of the 15 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 content3
Picture of Strix varia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mdf
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- CM Birds Collection
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Strix varia varia · CM:Birds:S14307
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Barred 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. Barton 1799