ANIMALS - BIRDS - OWLS - GREAT HORNED OWL (BUBO VIRGINIANUS)

Animals - Birds - Owls

Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus)

Scientific Classification:

Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Aves
Order : Strigiformes
Family : Strigdae
Genus : Bubo
Species : B. Virginianus

Description:

The Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the Tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air") or the Hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet appears to be rabbits and hares, rats and mice and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, primarily other rodents and small mammals, but also larger mid-sized mammals, various birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo), a closely related species which, despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), with which it often shares similar habitat, prey and nesting habits by day and is thus something of a diurnal ecological equivalent. The Great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.

Binomial Name:

Name : Bubo virginianus
Taxonomist : Johann Friedrich Gmelin
Year : 1788
Subspecies : 10 – 20+ (Virginianus, Nacurutu, Subarticus, … )
Synonym : Strix virginiana

Conservation Status by IUCN:

Status : Least Concern

Has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as evaluated but not qualified for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, near threatened, or (prior to 2001) conservation dependent.

Philatelic Issues

2015 - Uruguay - Stamp 2 of 8, from Owls Series

Issue information:

Country: Uruguay
Date: September 30th, 2015
Printed: 10.000 copies
Type : Stamp from Series of 8 Stamps
Value : UYP 15

Stamp : Rectangular
Size: 39 mm. x 27 mm.
Perforation: Circular
Gum: Water Activated