Tyto

Tyto is a genus of owls in the family Tytonidae. Depending on the species and the locality, common names include barn owl, common barn owl, grass owl, sooty owl, masked owl, field owl or simply owl. It is the most widely distributed genus of owls in the world and one of the most widespread of all genera of birds, living almost everywhere except for polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, some Indonesian islands and some Pacific Islands.

Tyto

Hayleyk at English Wikipedia · Public Domain · 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
Sits inside
TytonidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Strigiformes
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Strigiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Strigiformes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Strigiformes

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 12.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 13.82 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 3 of 139 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 139 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 88 of 139 occurrencesPleistocene14–13 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.1–8.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.6–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.2–6.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.7–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.3–4.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.8–4.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.3–3.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.8–3.3 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.3–2.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.9–2.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.4–1.9 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.9–1.4 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.4–955 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences955 ka–477 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences477 ka–0 Mya — about 118 occurrences12.8 Mya11.7 ka14.3 Mya0 Mya

139 occurrences of Tyto 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

139 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.

Found in

3 formations

Kromdraai — 26.00°S, 27.75°EShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WAlfambra — 40.35°N, 2.60°W

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The named rock units Tyto has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 136 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tyto and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Tyto and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,945 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 128 sites for Tyto, 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

72 references

Each of the 139 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. 60 further references are not listed. 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 Tyto

Credit
Hayleyk at English Wikipedia
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Tyto alba punctatissima · CAS:ORN:2947

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itTytonidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Billberg 1828