Southern boobook
| Southern boobook | |
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| Southern boobook, Downfall Creek Reserve, Brisbane |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Strigiformes |
| Family: | Strigidae |
| Genus: | Ninox |
| Species: | N. boobook |
| Binomial name | |
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Ninox boobook Latham, 1801 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Strix boobook Latham |
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Strix boobook Latham
Athene marmorata Gould
The southern boobook (Ninox boobook) is a species of owl native to mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, Timor and the Sunda Islands. It was considered to be the same species (conspecific) as the morepork of New Zealand until 2013. Birds from Tasmania belong to a taxon, leucopsis which appear to be more closely related to (and hence treated as a subspecies of) the New Zealand species. Eleven subspecies are recognized. This bird is the smallest owl on the Australian mainland and is the continent's most widely distributed and common owl. It is predominantly brown in plumage with grey-green or yellow-green eyes. It feeds on insects and small vertebrates.
English ornithologist John Latham [species description|described]] the boobook owl as Strix boobook in 1801, taking its species epithet from a local Aboriginal word for the bird.John Gould described Athene marmorata in 1846 from a specimen in South Australia; this is now regarded as a synonym. 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, which is widespread across the continent and Tasmania, and S. maculatus from southeastern Australia and Tasmania.
The common name comes from the two-tone call of the bird, and has also been transcribed as "mopoke".George Caley had recorded the native name as buck-buck during the earliest days of the colony, and reporting that early settlers had called it cuckoo owl as its call was reminiscent of the common cuckoo. However, he added, "The settlers in New South Wales are led away by the idea that everything is the reverse in that country to what it is in England; and the Cuckoo, as they call this bird, singing by night, is one of the instances they point out." Gould recorded local aboriginal names: Goor-goor-da (Western Australia), Mel-in-de-ye (Port Essington), and Koor-koo (South Australia). Alternative common names include spotted owl and brown owl.
Both Gerlof Fokko Mees and Ernst Mayr regarded the taxonomy of the boobook owl as extremely challenging, the latter remarking that it was "one of the most difficult problems I have ever encountered".
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