Delightfully devilish, Dirt_Owl

The following excerpts are from The Owl Pages resource

The Stygian Owl is a medium-sized to large owl with prominent, erectile ear-tufts. The adjective Stygian means ‘gloomy and dark’ and refers to the river Styx, which, in Greek mythology, the souls of the dead cross to reach the underworld.

Size: Length 38-46 cm. Wing length 291-380mm. Tail length 165-198mm. Weight 691-675g. Females are larger and heavier than males.

Hunting & Food: Feeds on bats, and birds such as doves, as well as small mammals and insects. Populations from south-east Brazil appear to prey mostly on small gregarious birds such as grassquits and other passerines. Birds are taken at their night time perches, detected by their own involuntarily sounds when touching the foliage. Stygian Owls normally hunt from a perch. Bats are captured on the wing.

Distribution: Eastern and southern Mexico, with patchy distribution through central America to western Nicaragua. Also found on the Caribbean isands of Cuba, Hispaniola and the Isle of Pines. In South America, distributed from extreme northwest Venezuela through eastern Colombia and central Ecuador. Also in the central Amazon region of Brazil, and Eastern Bolivia south through eastern Paraguay, northeastern Argentina and across southern Brazil.

Mortality: Human persecution is probably the major cause of unnatural deaths. Stygian Owl characteristics such as long ears tufts, dark coloration and particularly the brilliant red reflection of the eyes when illuminated by lamps have been associated with the Devil. As an example, its vernacular name in Brazil is “coruja-diabo”, or “devil’s owl”!