Descoberta nova espécie de coruja

Owl recorded in Oman could be a new species
4 October 2013
By Victoria Gill


The team says the owl belongs to a genus that also includes the Tawny owl, familiar in Britain and Europe

Ornithologists working in Oman say an owl discovered in a remote, mountainous region could be a new species.

Wildlife sound-recordist Magnus Robb told BBC News that he heard the bird's call whilst trying to record the call of another type of owl.

After repeated trips to the remote site, he and a colleague - naturalist and photographer Arnoud van den Berg - captured photographs of the bird.

They have published their observations in the journal Dutch Birding.

Mr Robb's first recordings of the bird's unfamiliar hoot were a serendipitous discovery in March of this year.

"I was listening through my headphones, when I suddenly heard something completely different [to the owl species I was there to record]," he told BBC News.

"I know the other Arabian owl sounds quite well, and this was clearly something that didn't fit."

The bird call expert said he had a "good inkling straight away that this could be something new".

"I even phoned a colleague a few minutes later and said, 'I think I've just discovered a new species of owl."

Mr Robb, who is involved in an international project called the Sound Approach, which aims to catalogue and understand bird sound, analysed the owls' call in detail.

This revealed that the bird was most likely to belong to a genus, or group of species, known as Strix.

Dr Wesley Hochachka from Cornell University's lab of ornithology commented that, in the last few decades, it had become "more accepted by ornithologists, particularly in tropical areas, that new species are being discovered based on distinctively different vocalisations".

The team plans to gather DNA evidence from the owl's feathers in order to confirm their find genetically.

But Prof Ian Newton, a bird expert from the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, said he found the evidence that the team had already provided convincing.

"Based on the recordings of songs and calls and on the good-quality photographs, I was also convinced that it should be placed within the genus Strix, which also contains the Tawny Owl of Britain and Europe," he told BBC News.

Mr Robb said he hoped eventually to name the new species the Omani owl, in honour of the Omani people.

"One of the reasons we've gone through this process of describing and confirming this as a new species so quickly is to get conservation for this owl as soon as possible," he explained to BBC News.

"Conservation can only start when this species is accepted and given some official status."

He hopes to return to Oman later this year in to learn more about the owl, its habitat and its behaviour.

So far, he and and his colleagues have found only seven of the birds in a single wadi in the remote, mountainous area of Oman.

"This suggests that it's a very rare creature indeed," he told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24374313

Esperemos que se tomem as medidas adequadas para proteger esta espécie. Faz-nos pensar no que mais haverá por aí e que estaremos a destruir sem que o saibamos.

É uma Strix Robb

http://sicnoticias.sapo.pt/mundo/2013/11/04/especialista-em-aves-acredita-ter-descoberto-nova-especie-de-coruja

Já agora deixo aqui a entrevista que o Magnus Robb deu para o STRI:
http://rapinasnocturnas.blogspot.pt/2013/10/entrevista-magnus-robb.html

Não sei se alguém já tinha colocado aqui este link.

http://soundapproach.co.uk/omani-owl-diary-of-discovery

A maioria de vós já deve ter lido, mas fica aqui para os restantes.

Notícia publicada hoje, 17-3-2015, no site da BBC

UAE: Rare owl surprises researchers



An owl discovered only two years ago and thought only to exist in the Gulf state of Oman has been reportedly identified in the United Arab Emirates.

Researchers in the mountainous and protected wetland area of Wadi Wurayah in the east of the emirates say they heard the distinctive call of the rare Omani owl when they played recorded owl calls through speakers, The National newspaper reports. The team from the Emirates Wildlife Society said that the owl, Latin name Strix omanensis, responded to their recordings "with an hour-long singing session". The cliff-dwelling bird is so rare and difficult to pin down that it was only discovered in 2013, and only seven birds living in a valley in Oman were observed at the time.

Ida Tillisch, director of the Emirates Wildlife Society, told The National that the group is "delighted" to have discovered the species in Wadi Wurayah, especially as the presence of a previously unknown bird had been suspected since at least 2006, but calls were then attributed to Hume's Tawny owl. The Omani owl's call is reminiscent of the song "Here Comes the Bride", National Geographic reported in 2013. According to Birdlife International, the global conservation group which includes the UK's RSPB, there have been so few sightings of the Omani owl, there is "insufficient information available for a robust assessment of its extinction risk" and its "population size remains a matter of speculation."

Fonte: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31912087

Publicação recente sobre este assunto:
http://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3904.1.2