Talk:Southern white-faced owl

Transforming Owl

Are there any sources that talk about its behavior and appearance when in the presences of other species, as seen in this video?--Waxsin (talk) 16:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rp-CaIKvQs

South versus North

This article claims that this species is the subject of the "Transformer Owl" video (and that the ability is "unique") but the article on the Southern White-faced Owl says that it was the subject. Can someone either sort this out or generalise the wording on both articles? I have cross-posted on the other. Thanks. 124.169.77.5 (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

You can see visually that the owl in the "Transformer Owl" video looks a lot more like the Northern White-faced Owl, and p. 315 of this book on owls specifically mentions that the Northern White-faced Owl transforms its appearance in this way, saying in the "Habits" section that "At its daytime roost, perches upright with feathers held rather tight to the body, appearing very slim, and with ear-tufts erected and eyes closed to fine horizontal slits: well camouflaged as well by this posture, as well as by coloration ... When roosting birds are approached, they threaten by growling and jerk the body back and forth. In greater aggression they bend forward, raise the back feathers, extend the wings, snap with the bill and hiss." Hypnosifl (talk) 08:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, I was looking for info on where the owl in the video, named "popo-chan", was kept, and found this page which talked about him and had a link to Kakegawa Kachoen which is apparently where he lives. On that page if you scroll down a little there's a picture of him with a link (you can also look at the google translated version of the site here), the link takes you to this page and then if you click the green link there, you get to this page which near the very bottom has a picture of him and identifies him as a Southern White-faced Owl. It's possible he's just mis-identified by the bird sanctuary, but since the Southern and Northern ones are closely related, I guess it could be possible that each species' appearance could vary by region or something, so some Southern ones might look more like the picture wikipedia has for the Northern one. Hypnosifl (talk) 15:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, and now that I look I do see other pictures of the Southern version that look more similar to the one in the video than the wikipedia image, see here for instance. OK, I think the fact that the sanctuary where Popo-chan is kept identifies him as the Southern version can be considered sufficiently authoritative, so I'll move the info on Popo-chan to this article. Hypnosifl (talk) 15:41, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, now that I look at that last page from the sanctuary again, it doesn't actually say that the owl in the picture identified as the Southern variety is Popo-chan, I just jumped to that conclusion. What's more, looking at the google translated version of the main page, near the top there's a section that says "Here are the highlights", and one line in that section is translated by google (a better translation would be helpful) as "intimidation, famous in Japan in the mimicry Owl Giant African Scops of Popo Chan". The link for "Giant African Scops" gives the scientific name as Ptilopsis leucotis which refers to the Northern White-faced Owl, not the Southern, and since this link is right next to the link for Popo-chan, I assume that link must be intended to tell readers what kind of owl Popo-chan is. So, I think I'll have to move this info back to the Northern White-faced Owl after all. Hypnosifl (talk) 16:08, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the identification of the species on the site above doesn't entirely settle the issue, since according to the Northern White-faced Owl page, "The Southern White-faced Owl (P. granti) was formerly included in this species and the two were known as the White-faced Scops-Owl." And the English-language version of the Kakegawa Kachoen site says here that Popo-chan is a "White-faced Scops Owl", so they may just be using an outdated classification that doesn't distinguish between the Northern and Southern varieties and identifies both as Ptilopsis leucotis. The fact that the Japanese TV show said Popo-chan was from South Africa may suggest it's more likely the Southern variety, since p. 314 of this book gives the geographic distribution of the Northern species as "Africa south of the Sahara, from Senegambia eastwards to Sudan, Somalia, N Uganda and N Kenya. In Kenya and Uganda, probably overlaps in distribution with Southern White-faced Owl." Then [ p. 316] gives the distribution of the Southern species as Africa from S Uganda and S Kenya south to the Congo, Angola, Namibia and to the northern Cape Province and Natal." (The Northern Cape is in South Africa). Hypnosifl (talk) 12:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, it looks like the "White-faced Scops-Owl" which both Northern and Southern White-faced Owls were formerly included under had the scientific name Otus leucotis, not Ptilopsis leucotis. So the fact that the website identifies Popo-chan as Ptilopsis leucotis would seem to mean it's a Northern White-faced Owl even though the range of this species isn't supposed to go as far south as South Africa...it could just be a mistake on the part of the website creators, I suppose. Hypnosifl (talk) 14:40, 23 April 2012 (UTC)