Here’s something strange about barn owls. They’re not technically “true owls.” That distinction belongs to the family Strigidae, which includes most of the familiar hooting owls. Barn owls belong to a different family, Tytonidae. They’re still owls, of course, but their evolutionary history is surprisingly different. And according to a new genetic study, their ancestors may have pulled off one of the most extraordinary journeys in bird evolution. A stunning journey to the Caribbean Millions of years ago, barn owls apparently reached the Americas not by crossing ancient land bridges, as scientists once suspected, but by flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Their first destination wasn’t North or South America. It was the Caribbean. There, the birds established themselves, evolved into distinct lineages, and eventually spread across both continents. The study also sheds light on a lost world of enormous Caribbean owls, some standing around a meter tall, and uncovers evidence that barn owls reached the remote Galápagos Islands on two separate occasions. All of this was hiding in DNA preserved in museum collections. An Extraordinary Journey Today, barn owls live on every continent except Antarctica. They’re remarkably successful birds, able to thrive in environments ranging from tropical grasslands to farmland,...

Here’s something strange about barn owls. They’re not technically “true owls.” That distinction belongs to the family Strigidae, which includes most of the familiar hooting owls. Barn owls belong to a different family, Tytonidae. They’re still owls, of course, but their evolutionary history is surprisingly different. And according to a new genetic study, their ancestors may have pulled off one of the most extraordinary journeys in bird evolution. A stunning journey to the Caribbean Millions of years ago, barn owls apparently reached the Americas not by crossing ancient land bridges, as scientists once suspected, but by flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Their first destination wasn’t North or South America. It was the Caribbean. There, the birds established themselves, evolved into distinct lineages, and eventually spread across both continents. The study also sheds light on a lost world of enormous Caribbean owls, some standing around a meter tall, and uncovers evidence that barn owls reached the remote Galápagos Islands on two separate occasions. All of this was hiding in DNA preserved in museum collections. An Extraordinary Journey Today, barn owls live on every continent except Antarctica. They’re remarkably successful birds, able to thrive in environments ranging from tropical grasslands to farmland,...

Extant little owl (Athene noctua) and its relatives are iconic strigiform birds (Aves: Strigiformes) with a very poorly known evolutionary history. The anatomy and adaptation of early members of this...