Rare orange-eyed owl spotted for the first time in more than 125 yearsFor the first time since its discovery more than 125 years ago, scientists have documented the Bornean subspecies of the Rajah Scops-Owl in the montane forest of Malaysia's Mount Kinabalu.
Researchers from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center announced their rediscovery of the orange-eyed bird last month in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology, including the first photographs of it in the wild.
In their report's Abstract, the ecologists noted that while almost all of the basic elements of the species' ecology are unknown – like vocalizations, distribution, breeding biology, and population size – the "phylogeographic patterns of montane birds in Borneo and Sumatra, as well as plumage characters, suggest that O. b. brookii may be deserving of species classification."
According to Science Direct, phylogeography is a field of study that works to understand relationships among individual genotypes within a species or a group of closely related species and correlate the examined relationships to the species or group's spatial distribution...........
