Animalia Life

Tyto longimembris
SUBFAMILY
Tytoninae
TAXONOMY
Strix longimembris Jerdon, 1839, India. Five or six subspecies recognized. Forms a species complex with the similar African grass owl (T. capensis), with which sometimes regarded as conspecific.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: Grass owl; French: Effraie de prairie; German: Graseule; Spanish: Lechuza Patilarga.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Male 13–14 in (32–36 cm), 0.6–0.8 lb (265–375 g); female 14–15 in (35–38 cm), 0.7–1.3 lb (320–582 g). Small, pale or dark owl with small eyes set in rather long, square facial disc, long bare legs. Mottled brown and buff dorsally, underside white or buff, finely spotted. Female larger and darker. Juvenile darker, with downy head and thighs when first fledged.
DISTRIBUTION
One subspecies from India through Indonesia to Australia; one subspecies in Indochina and eastern China; one subspecies in Taiwan; one subspecies in the Philippines; and one or two subspecies in New Guinea.
HABITAT
Rank grassland, heath, crops, and wetland verges of rushes and reeds.
BEHAVIOR
Nocturnal and crepuscular, rarely diurnal. Solitary, or in loose aggregations when prey is abundant. Roosts, solitarily or communally, in dense ground cover. Resident, but also dispersive and irruptive. Territorial when breeding, defending the nesting area with trilling calls and soft screeches. Up to 40 pairs of grass owls may nest in 0.2 mi2 (0.4 km2, with as little as 55 yards (50 m) between neighboring nests.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Preys mostly on rodents, detected by watching and listening from low searching flight.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Monogamous. Lays in autumn and winter. Nest is a scrape or pad on the ground, under covering vegetation. Clutch is 3–8 eggs, incubated for 31 days. Can run and leave the nest at 4–5 weeks, fully fledged and fly at two months.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not globally threatened. Widespread and uncommon to rare, although locally common in coastal eastern Australia during times of abundant prey. Listed on Appendix II of CITES.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
In Australia has become a flagship species, as a destroyer of rodents in sugar cane.

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