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Eyesight is a particular characteristic of the owl that aids in nocturnal prey capture. Owls are part of a small group of birds that live nocturnally, but do not use echolocation to guide them in flight in low-light situations. Owls are known for their disproportionally large eyes in comparison to their skulls.
The bird family Tytonidae, which includes the barn owls Tyto and the bay owls Phodilus, is one of the two families of owls, the other being the true owls or typical owls, Strigidae. They are medium to large owls with large heads and characteristic heart-shaped faces. They have long, strong legs with powerful talons. They also differ from the ...
Many were coastal birds, strikingly resembling modern shorebirds, like Ichthyornis, or ducks, like Gansus. Some evolved as swimming hunters, like the Hesperornithiformes – a group of flightless divers resembling grebes and loons. While modern in most respects, most of these birds retained typical reptilian-like teeth and sharp claws on the manus.
Anoles on a given island evolve into multiple body types and ecological preferences, and the same set of body types appears in unrelated species across distant islands. [93] The Asian sea snake Hydrophis schistosus (beaked sea snake) looks just like the Australian sea snake Hydrophis zweifeli, but in fact is not related. [94]
Burrowing owls have bright eyes; their beaks can be dark yellow or gray depending on the subspecies. They lack ear tufts and have a flattened facial disc. The owls have prominent white eyebrows and a white "chin" patch which they expand and display during certain behaviors, such as a bobbing of the head when agitated.
Strigiformes (owls), as a whole, are well-known for flying silently, and without overly flapping their wings; this ensures their prey does not escape, as they cannot hear or suspect a predator approaching from above. As soon as a choice prey animal is spotted by the pueo, the owl intently glides-over and lands directly on top of it, killing it ...
Cross sectioned great grey owl specimen showing the extent of the body plumage, Zoological Museum, Copenhagen Skeleton of a Strigidae owl. While typical owls (hereafter referred to simply as owls) vary greatly in size, with the smallest species, the elf owl, being a hundredth the size of the largest, the Eurasian eagle-owl and Blakiston's fish owl, owls generally share an extremely similar ...
The Sophiornithidae (literally "wisdom birds") are an extinct family of chicken-sized predatory birds that lived from the Paleocene to the Eocene periods of the Cenozoic, and were found primarily in Europe, and are thought to be primitive owls.