Photos by Shankar S
In honor of our little buddy WFS winning the big tournament, I thought this guy might make a nice transition back to my normal postings.
Giant Scops is the largest of the Scops (genus Otus) owls. He comes in at a monstrous 12 inches / 30 cm. White Faced Scops is 9.5 inches / 24 cm.
The Giant Scops is only found on 3 islands in the Philippines, one of which essentially has no trees left, and the other 2 are leased to logging companies. ๐
I do too! I like the black water droplet like spots going down the front and the heavier looking eyebrow ridges.
Thought it would be fun to compare this one to the White Faced Scops we spent all week admiring to show the diversity of the Otus genus and highlight why it got split up a few times over the years. With WFS (Ptilopsis) in Africa, Giant Scops in far East Asia (Otus, the original genus), and the Screech Owls (Megascops) you can tell just by looking at them they are pretty significantly different.
There are still 56 species of owl today that are still in the Otus genus, so between them and the handful that have gotten their own new genus, that's a lot of Scops!