Australian boobook
The Australian boobook is a species of owl native to mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, the island of Timor, and the Sunda Islands. Eight subspecies are recognized, with three further subspecies being reclassified as separate species in 2019. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the boobook as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population.
About Australian boobook in brief
The Australian boobook is a species of owl native to mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, the island of Timor, and the Sunda Islands. Described by John Latham in 1801, it was generally considered to be the same species as the morepork of New Zealand until 1999. Its name is derived from its two-tone boo-book call. Eight subspecies are recognized, with three further subspecies being reclassified as separate species in 2019 due to their distinctive calls and genetics. The smallest owl on the Australian mainland, it is 27 to 36 cm long, with predominantly dark-brown plumage with prominent pale spots. It is generally nocturnal, though is sometimes active at dawn and dusk, retiring to roost in secluded spots in the foliage of trees. Breeding takes place from late winter to early summer, using tree hollows as nesting sites. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed the boobook as being of least concern on account of its large range and apparently stable population. The common name comes from the two- tone call of the bird, and has also been transcribed as “mopoke”. William Dawes recorded the name bōkbōk “an owl” in 1790 or 1791, in his transcription of the Dharug language. English explorer George Caley had recorded the native name as buck-buck during the earliest days of the colony, reporting that early settlers had called it cuckoo owl as its call was reminiscent of the common cucksoo.
He added, The settlers in New South Wales are led away by the idea that everything is the reverse of what it is in England; and they call this bird, singing by night, Goorgoorda-de-goor, one of the local aboriginal names for the bird. In the Gamaliya dialect of southeastern Australia, the Australian boreader is guurrguurr, which means “gurri-gurr” in Gamaliyas. The species description was based on a painting by Thomas Watling of a bird—the holotype—in the Sydney district in the 1790s. In his 1865 Handbook to the Birds of Australia, Gould recognised three species, all of which he placed in the genus Spiloglaux: S. marmoratus from South Australia, S. boobook, and S. maculatus from southeastern Australia and Tasmania. Meanwhile, in India, English naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson had established the genus Ninox in 1837, and his countryman Edward Blyth placed the Australian Boobook in the new genus in 1849. In 1913, the International Ornithological Committee, changed from “southern boobook” in 2019 with the separation of some Indonesian subspecies. It has been designated the official name by the IORC, changing from gurrri to guurguurra in the Gamliya dialect.
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This page is based on the article Australian boobook published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
