Nocturnal Strigioformes | Silent Sneakers

  

Not all Owls are scary some are cute

Owls' scientific name is Strigioformes. They are nocturnal (active at night). In order to hunt and survive in the night time they have heightened sense of smell and sharp vision. They are also good listeners.

They can turn their heads and upper neck up to 135^o to right and left (a total of 270^o). Their eyes are placed in the front rather than sideways. This gives them more depth perception towards their front and zero vision of sideways. Unlike humans and many animals they cannot roll their eyeballs sideways, which gives them more focus on the frontal region. In a way as a remedy they can turn their heads more widely though. 

Active at night means at the first : - Better vision.

They can spot a typical mouse in a football field with the luminosity of a single candle. They have more concentrated retina with tightly packed light sensitive cells. They also an extra tissue in their eyes to enhance their sight. This tissue captures the light entering the eyes and re-reflects it to the retina. A second snap with the same click. It gives the owls the chance to view again the image if missed anything. This tissue is called as Tapetum lucidum. 

Their ears are covered by feathers and what we see are not true ears. They are actually just tufts of upright feathers. Their neck is covered with rings of layers of feathers which are aligned such that they direct the sounds to the true ears of the owls, which are present at their underside. Their ears are placed asymmetrically on their heads. This means sound reaches on one of the ear faster than the other creating a gap between the sensations enabling the nervous system of it's body to pinpoint the source of the sound based on intensity and delay between the two ears.

Not only ears, Even their wings are placed asymmetrically, which scientists believe gives them more maneuverability during their flight.

Here is a demonstration of it's silent flight, 

 Furthermore their wings have finger like projections on the outer and inner edges of their wings which divides air into channels while in flight. This breaks down the movement of the air in  our direction and splits it into directions. Thus creating lesser movement/circulation in the air and also flying silently. The lesser air movement the lesser the difference in air pressure thus lesser sound produced. Their wings are rather large and wide than pointy compared with other fast fliers, which in turn provide them with greater lift. Hence they can cross longer distances in  a single wing beat. They are slow but silent. Their flight creates almost no sound that it is improbable to hear with leave human ears not even with our best equipment of our technology. Their wings' edges are more jagged than other birds.

Their diet mostly consists of smaller birds occasionally and they mostly prey upon worms, insects, rats, mice and hares/rabbits etc.

One of 200 individual species, the Snowy owl lives in the severe and extreme climatic conditions of the arctic regions. They lay more eggs during the period of abundant sources of prey, almost as twice as normal !!

Their eyes pupils can dilute independently for more optimal vision. They are also slightly sensitive to UV light.

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J. Maanavendra roy,
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