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.
The genus comprises three widespread continental species and many island species including the extinct island species. The widespread species comprise: western barn owl of Europe, western Asia and Africa, the eastern barn owl of Southeast Asia and Australasia, and the American barn owl of the Americas. However, some taxonomic authorities classify barn owls differently, and unify all continental barn owls in to one species. Further research is needed clarify the taxonomies.
There is considerable variation of size and colour among the many species and sub-subspecies, but most are between in length, with wingspans ranging from. The plumage on the head and back is a mottled shade of grey or brown; that on the underparts varies from white to brown and is sometimes speckled with dark markings. The facial disc is characteristically large and heart-shaped, with white plumage in most subspecies. This owl does not hoot, but utters an eerie, drawn-out screech.
The species of this genus are nocturnal over most of its range, but in Great Britain and some Pacific Islands, it also hunts by day. Barn owls specialise in hunting animals on the ground, and nearly all of their food consists of small mammals, which they locate by sound, their hearing being very acute. The owls usually mate for life unless one of the pair is killed, whereupon a new pair bond may be formed. Breeding takes place at varying times of the year, according to the locality, with a clutch of eggs, averaging about four in number, being laid in a nest in a hollow tree, old building, or fissure in a cliff. The female does all the incubation, and she and the young chicks are reliant on the male for food. When large numbers of small prey are readily available, barn owl populations can expand rapidly, and globally the barn owl is listed Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Some subspecies with restricted ranges are more threatened.
Taxonomy
The genus Tyto was introduced in 1828 by the Swedish naturalist Gustaf Johan Billberg with the Tyto alba as the type species. The name is from the Ancient Greek tutō meaning "owl".The barn owl was formerly considered to have a global distribution with around 28 subspecies. In the list of birds maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the International Ornithological Committee the genus is now split into four species: the western barn owl, the American barn owl, the eastern barn owl and the Andaman masked owl. This arrangement is followed here. Support for this split was provided by a molecular phylogenetic study by Vera Uva and collaborators published in 2018 that compared the DNA sequences of three mitochondrial and one nuclear loci. This split was eventually adopted by other taxonomic authorities such as the American Ornithological Society and the Clements Checklist of Birds of the World maintained by members of Cornell University in 2024, but as of 2025 has yet to be accepted by the list maintained by BirdLife International that is used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The cladogram below is based on the 2018 phylogenetic study. The Andaman masked owl and Itombwe owl were not sampled. The Manus masked owl was embedded in a clade with subspecies of the Australian masked owl.
Throughout their evolutionary history, Tyto owls have shown a better capability to colonize islands than other owls. Several such island forms have become extinct, some long ago, but some in comparatively recent times. A number of insular barn owls from the Mediterranean and the Caribbean were very large or truly gigantic species.
Extant species
Seventeen species are recognized:| Image | Common name | Scientific name | Distribution |
| Greater sooty owl | Tyto tenebricosa | Australia | |
| Lesser sooty owl | Tyto multipunctata | Australia | |
| Minahasa masked owl | Tyto inexspectata | Sulawesi, Indonesia | |
| Taliabu masked owl | Tyto nigrobrunnea | Sula Islands, Maluku, Indonesia | |
| Moluccan masked owl | Tyto sororcula | south Moluccas of Indonesia | |
| Manus masked owl | Tyto manusi | Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands | |
| Golden masked owl | Tyto aurantia | the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea | |
| Australian masked owl | Tyto novaehollandiae | Southern New Guinea and the non-desert areas of Australia. | |
| Sulawesi masked owl | Tyto rosenbergii | the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi, Sangihe and Peleng | |
| Red owl | Tyto soumagnei | Madagascar | |
| Western barn owl | Tyto alba | Eurasia and Africa. | |
| American barn owl | Tyto furcata | the Americas | |
| Eastern barn owl | Tyto javanica | southeast Asia and Australasia. | |
| Andaman masked owl | Tyto deroepstorffi | southern Andaman Islands | |
| Ashy-faced owl | Tyto glaucops | Hispaniola. | |
| African grass owl | Tyto capensis | southern Congo and northern Angola to the central coast of Mozambique and the other centred on South Africa from the Western Cape north to the southern extremities of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique up to Kenya and Ethiopia. | |
| Eastern grass owl | Tyto longimembris | eastern, southern and southeast Asia, parts of New Guinea, Australia and the western Pacific | |
| Itombwe owl | Tyto prigoginei | Itombwe Mountains in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo |
Extinct species
;Known from ancient fossils:Tyto sanctialbani - formerly in Strix; includes T. campiterraeTyto robusta Tyto gigantea Tyto balearica Tyto mourerchauvireae Tyto jinniushanensis- Tyto maniola – Cuban Dwarf Barn Owl Tyto richae Tyto sp. 1 Tyto sp. 2
- Mussau barn owl found in Mussau
- New Ireland greater barn owl found in New Ireland
- New Ireland lesser barn owl found in New Ireland
- New Caledonian barn owl found in New Caledonia - tentatively placed here
- Puerto Rican barn owl found in Puerto Rico - may still have existed up to 1912; possibly a subspecies of the ashy-faced owl
- Noel's barn owl found in Cuba
- Rivero's barn owl found in Cuba
- Cuban barn owl found in Cuba
- Hispaniolan barn owl found in Hispaniola
- Bahaman barn owl found in Little Exuma, New Providence, and maybe Andros Island, the Bahamas - may have survived into the 16th century
- Barbuda barn owl found in Barbuda and possibly Antigua
- Maltese barn owl found in Malta - formerly in Strix; possibly a paleosubspecies of ''Tyto alba''
Former species
A number of owl fossils were at one time assigned to the present genus, but are nowadays placed elsewhere. While there are clear differences in osteology between typical owls and barn owls, there has been parallel evolution to some degree and thus isolated fossil bones cannot necessarily be assigned to either family without thorough study. Notably, the genus Strix has been misapplied by many early scientists as a "wastebasket taxon" for many owls, including Tyto.Tyto antiqua was a barn owl of the prehistoric genus Prosybris; this taxon might be a nomen nudum, as the species was originally described in Strix, this requires confirmationTyto edwardsi was a strigid owl, but has not yet been reliably identified to a genus; it might belong in Strix or the European Ninox-like group.Tyto ignota was a strigid owl of unclear affinities; while it might belong into Strix, this requires confirmation- "TMT 164", a distal left tarsometatarsus of a supposed Tyto from the Middle Miocene Grive-Saint-Alban ; might also belong in Prosybris, as it is similar to ''Tyto antiqua''