Oriental Bay Owl
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Order: Strigiformes
Family: Tytonidae

[Photo] Oriental Bay Owl (Phodilus badius). "According to the sign this is Phodilus badius, a relative of the barn owl, from south and southeast Asia. Taken at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans." Source: Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/alumroot/43147855/). Copyright ?? 2005 Alan Wolf (http://flickr.com/people/90055788@N00)

The Oriental Bay Owl (Phodilus badius) is a type of owl, usually classified with barn owls. It is completely nocturnal, and can be found throughout Southeast Asia. It has several subspecies. It has a heart-shaped face with earlike extensions. The Congo Bay Owl (Phodilus prigoginei) was formerly classified as a subspecies of Oriental Bay Owl due to insufficient knowledge, but it has turned out that it might not even belong into the same genus.

A population of this species has apparently become extinct on Samar Island in the Philippines during the 20th century. It was described as Phodilus badius riverae and was only ever known from a single specimen, which was lost in a bombing raid in 1945. The validity of this taxon is uncertain; it is usually synonymized with the nominate subspecies (for reasons of biogeography) or the subspecies saturatus (from external appearance); it might be a distinct species, however

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Bay_Owl

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