Réunion scops owl

Réunion scops owl
Conservation status
Extinct (late 17th century?)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Strigiformes
Family:	Strigidae
Genus:	Otus
Species:	†O. grucheti
Binomial name
†Otus grucheti (Mourer-Chauviré, Bour, Moutou & Ribes, 1994)

The Réunion scops owl (Otus grucheti), also known as the Réunion owl or Réunion lizard owl, was a small

As the bird is not mentioned by any contemporary report, it was either very secretive or became extinct earlier than its congeners. Notably, it is not contained in the comprehensive listing of local fauna that Dubois made in 1671–72. At that time, the only introduced predators were pigs. Inferring from the local ecology, it is likely that the birds succumbed to predation by rats and perhaps also cats as they must have been flight worthy enough to avoid the pigs, and thus only became extinct after Dubois' visit, at some date closer to the year 1700.^{[citation needed]} If the bird was ground-nesting, however, it might have been extinct even by the time Dubois did not record it, but this hypothesis does not seem to agree what can be inferred from the rather long survival of its Mauritius relative.

References