🐦
Western Barn Owl
Tyto alba
Birds · Least concern
vs
🦉
Tawny owl
Strix aluco
Birds · Least concern
15 clips name both of them
22,623 views between them.
Tawny owl outweighs Western Barn Owl 1.2× — 0.5 kg against 0.4 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
Tale of the tape
Body mass
0.4 kg
🐦 Western Barn Owl · AVONET
0.47 kg
🦉 Tawny owl · AVONET
Maximum lifespan
34 yr
🐦 Western Barn Owl · AnAge
22 yr
🦉 Tawny owl · AnAge
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Strigiformes (order), home to 422 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 79 million years ago.
Estimates range from 71 to 93 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Jetz, Thomas, Joy, Hartmann & Mooers 2012, Nature 491:444 (CC0).