Tyto pollens Wetmore, 1937:436
Andros Island barn owl, Bahamian barn owl, Bahaman barn owl, Bahamian great owl, Lechuza Gigante de las Bahamas, Chickcharney/Chickcharnie (cryptid)
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Tyto riveroi Arredondo, 1972:131
According to (Suárez & Olson, 2015) T. riveroi is a synonym of this species.
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Holocene (1500's?)
Distribution & Habitat
Little Exuma and New Providence, Bahamas & Cuba (as [i]T. riveroi[/i])
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
MCZ 2262 and 2263
USNM 283287 and 283288
PB 9077
UF 3195 to 3199, 25646 to 25647, and 25656
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Wetmore, Alexander. (1937). Bird remains from cave deposits on Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard College 80(12): 427-441.
Other references:
Arredondo, Oscar. (1972). Especie Nueva de Lechuza Gigante (Strigiformes: Tytonidae) del Pleistoceno Cubano. Boletin de la Sociedad Venezolana Ciencias Naturales 30: 129-140.
Arredondo, Oscar. (1982). Los Strigiformes fosiles del Pleistoceno Cubano. Boletín de la Sociedad Venezolana de Ciencias Naturales 37: 33-55.
Brodkorb, Pierce. (1959). Pleistocene Birds from New Providence Island, Bahamas. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 4(11): 349-371.
Faurby, Søren, Matthews, Tom J., Triantis, Kostas A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2026). Quantifying the unrecorded loss of avian phylogenetic diversity. Ecography 2026: e08267. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08267
Marcot, Bruce G. (1995). Owls of old forests of the world. General Technical Reports. Portland, Oregon: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
Matthews, Thomas J., Triantis, Kostas A., Wayman, Joseph P., Martin, Thomas E., Hume, Julian P., Cardoso, Pedro, Faurby, Søren, Mendenhall, Chase D., Dufour, Paul, Rigal, François, Cooke, Rob, Whittaker, Robert J., Pigot, Alex L., Thébaud, Christophe, Jørgensen, Maria Wagner, Benavides, Eva, Soares, Filipa C., Ulrich, Werner, Kubota, Yasuhiro, Sadler, Jon P., Tobias, Joseph A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2024). The global loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity from anthropogenic extinctions. Science 386(6717): 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7898 [Supplementary Materials; Dryad dataset; Zenodo codeset]
Matthews, Thomas J., Wayman, Joseph P., Cardoso, Pedro, Sayol, Ferran, Hume, Julian P., Ulrich, Werner, Tobias, Joseph A., Soares, Filipa C., Thébaud, Christophe, Martin, Thomas E. and Triantis, Kostas A. (2022). Threatened and extinct island endemic birds of the world: Distribution, threats and functional diversity. Journal of Biogeography 49(11): 1920-1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14474 [Appendix S1 (.docx); Appendix S2 (.pdf)]
Olson, Storrs L. and Hilgartner, William B. (1982). Fossil and Subfossil Birds from the Bahamas, pp. 22-56. In: Olson, Storrs L. (ed). Fossil vertebrates from the Bahamas. Smithsonian Contributions to Palaeobiology, No. 48: 1-68.
Orihuela, Johanset. (2019). An annotated list of late Quaternary extinct birds of Cuba. Ornitología Neotropical 30: 57-67.
Oswald, Jessica A. and Steadman, David W. (2018). The late Quaternary bird community of New Providence, Bahamas. The Auk 135(2): 359-377. [Abstract]
Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M., Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]
Steadman, David W. and Franklin, Janet. (2020). Bird populations and species lost to Late Quaternary environmental change and human impact in the Bahamas. PNAS. doi/10.1073/pnas.2013368117 [Supplementary Information]
Suárez, William. (2022). Catalogue of Cuban fossil and subfossil birds. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 142(1): 10-74. https://doi.org/10.25226/bboc.v142i1.2022.a3
Suárez, William and Olson, Storrs L. (2015). Systematics and distribution of the giant fossil barn owls of the West Indies (Aves: Strigiformes: Tytonidae). Zootaxa 4020(3): 533-553.
Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.
Wetmore, Alexander. (1937). Bird Remains from Cave Deposits on Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College 80(12): 427-441.