Timor boobook

The Timor boobook (Ninox fusca) is a species of owl in the family Strigidae. It is found on Timor, Roma, Leti and Semau islands in the eastern Lesser Sunda Islands.^[2][3]

Timor boobook
Conservation status
CITES Appendix II (CITES)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Strigiformes
Family:	Strigidae
Genus:	Ninox
Species:	N. fusca
Binomial name
Ninox fusca (Vieillot, 1817)

It has a more grey-brown plumage with no red tinge, unlike other subspecies. It has grey streaks on its belly and white spots on its secondaries, inner wing-coverts and nape.^[2] It was described by French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1817 as Strix fusca.^[4] Austrian ornithologist Carl Eduard Hellmayr noted that it closely resembled the Australian boobook and concluded it was probably a subspecies of the latter,^[5] and Mayr classified it as a subspecies in 1943.^[6] Genetic and call analysis show it to be markedly divergent to the Australian populations of the Australian boobook, leading Gwee and colleagues to suggest it be reclassified as a separate species.^[7] Its calls are shorter and more frequent than the Australian boobook.^[8] It was reclassified as a distinct species in 2019.