Otus scops

The Eurasian scops owl, also known as the European scops owl, common scops owl or just scops owl, is a small owl in the typical owl family Strigidae. Its breeding range extends from southern Europe eastwards to southern Siberia and the western Himalayas. It is migratory, wintering in Africa south of the Sahara, although it is resident year-round in parts of Mediterranean Europe.

Otus scops

Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium · CC BY 2.0 · 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
European scops-owlPBDB
Sits inside
OtusPBDB
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 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 1.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 10 of 10 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 10 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–997 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences997 ka–920 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences920 ka–843 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences843 ka–767 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences767 ka–690 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences690 ka–613 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences613 ka–537 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences537 ka–460 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences460 ka–383 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences383 ka–307 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences307 ka–230 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences230 ka–153 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences153 ka–77 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences77 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences774 ka129 ka2.3 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Otus scops 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

10 occurrences

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.

Otus scops and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Otus scops and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

220 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Otus scops, 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

Each of the 10 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 content1

Picture of Otus scops

Credit
Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Otus scops was found in Sketchfab.

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

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 itOtus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)