Ninox


Ninox is a genus of true owls comprising about 30 species found in Asia and Australasia. Many species are known as hawk-owls or boobooks, but the northern hawk-owl Surnia ulula is not a member of this genus. Molecular analysis indicates the genus is an early offshoot from the ancestors of the rest of the true owls, and are maybe best-classified in a subfamily Ninoxinae with the genera Sceloglaux and Uroglaux. The genus was introduced by the English naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1837.
The species of Ninox are:
Genomic studies of the extinct laughing owl of New Zealand indicate that it may actually belong in Ninox rather than the monotypic genus Sceloglaux. The fossil owls "Otus" wintershofensis and "Strix" brevis, both from the Early or Middle Miocene of Wintershof, Germany, are close to this genus; the latter was sometimes explicitly placed in Ninox, but is now in Intutula. "Strix" edwardsi from the Late Miocene of La Grive St. Alban, France, might also belong into this group.

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