Strigidae: True Owl Family

There are two families of owls, the Barn Owls (Tytonidae) and the True or Typical Owl (Strigidae). How these birds have been classified within taxonomy systems is not very clear as different systems say different things. In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy of birds, Caprimulgiformes are classified as within the Owl order and Strigidae are a sub-family. However from what I understand there is little or no research that backs up this classification.

The general agreed classification of owls is that Strigidae and Tytonidae are the two owl families.

Within the Strigidae family of Typical/True Owls there are believed to be 189 living species, in 25 genera. Typical Owls can be found all across the world with the exception of Antarctica.

One genera in the Strigidae family is ‘Bubo’ which is made up of the American Horned Owls and the Old World Eagle Owls. At first, only ‘tufted owls’ were allowed to be classified under this genera, but this changed to let in owls such as the snowy owl.

The size of such owls differs dramatically; the elf owl is the smallest true owl and can be 5-10 inches tall, whist the Eurasian Eagle Owl is generally around 23-29 inches tall. Despite this nearly all true Owls have a similar structure: a large head, short tail feathers and very round disc-like owls. They all (with a few exceptions such as the burrowing owl) live off the ground in trees. Females of the different species tend to be larger than the males (of the same species).

Nearly all True owls get their food whilst they are flying.