Tyto melitensis (Lydekker)

Maltese Barn Owl (Tyto melitensis 

The Maltese Barn Owl was described in 1891, it is known from a single bone, a fragmentary femur, which was recovered from a unspecified cave somewhere on the island of Malta.

The fragment was dated to the latest Pleistocene, however, the species (if it indeed was one at all) might well have survived into the early Holocene.

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Some authors do not accept this form as a distinct species and consider it either as being identical to the Common Barn Owl (Tyto alba (Scopoli) or as having been a subspecies of it. 

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edited: 08.09.2019