Is the Ninox Strenua the only species of owl to eat bats, or do other species make meals of them regularly?
Great question! Let me just ask wikipedia a few questions real quick.
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So I'm not sure about your question specifically, but the powerful boobook Ninox strenua is definitely an intriguing weirdo whose existence is worth rotating in one's head!
The fact that their specialty is arboreal prey is just kind of whack– I mean obviously it can work (IUCN 3.1 Least Concern) but wow ok way to style on everyone else by deciding you're gonna go for the RL equivalent of underwater combat. Furthermore this weirdo apparently has REALLY strong peets, which is behind the common name, and it's just very used to killing prey in a weight class way higher than other birds/owls its size can. The rule for basically all carniovores most of the time is you need to gank stuff smaller than you if you fight solo or else it's probably a net loss; in the boobook's case I suspect this is at least partially driven by the prey weight classes available to an owl who stalks tree canopies, but it's still wild to hear about it eating things as heavy as it is! Those peets could kill God if scaled up slightly.
Anyways I hadn't heard of this animal before so I was initially guessing it ate really small bats, which are plentiful in a lot of places and would be at least plausible prey items if you made me guess blind! I could believe a greater horned owl is capable of declaring a little brown bat dinner, it's just a matter of the tech matchup, y'know? But nay. Boobook is out here ganking flying foxes. What the fuck.
Anyways sorry for no answers (my specialty is what the bats are eating) but I love this thing and I'm going to tell people about it going forward. :D
