WINNER: SNOWY OWL 85-70
❄️ The Battle of Ice and Fire is here! 🔥
From the North, we have the transcontinental champion of the meme, the squishable polar bear of an owl, the one with the big fuzzy feet, the eater of lemmings, THE SNOWY OWL!
Few of us doubted the Snowy Owl would make it here. It’s taken a look at every opponent and said O RLY? Even non-owl fanatics know and love this big plump owl.
Its opponent, from the toasty American Southwest, the tiny titan with a heart of fire, the muncher of moths big and small, the bird whose flaming spirit you can see on its face, THE FLAMMULATED OWL!
This tiny owl has developed a cult following here since taking down the North American King of Owls, the Great Horned Owl. A call had gone out for a new, unknown owl to lead us into the future of owl-ness. Can Flammy answer that call?
Which owl will go forward, and which will be left behind? Upvote your favorite now!
If you’re still not sure who to vote for, you should know that Flammy’s Dutch name is absolute fire: Ponderosadwergooruil!
Ponderosa - (Latin) most common conifer tree in the NW US
Dwergooruil - (Dutch) Scops Owl
Ponderosa itself is from ponderosus, meaning large, heavy, or weighty. So the owl is definitely named for the tree, not its size!
Thanks, I was already wondering about the first (Latin) part of the name. The literal translation of dwerg-oor-uil is dwarf eared owl. Is that the same as scops Owl? Maybe the Ponderosa part doesn’t refer to the trees either, but to Flammy’s fanbase right now; it’s getting quite large now!
Oh, apologies, I didn’t notice your instance, so I’ll assume your actual Dutch is a million times better. 😅
What a Scops Owl is gets a little tricky. The Indian Scops Owl was the first to be named Scops, specifically Otus scops. Both are Greek words, otus meaning horned/eared, and skops meaning little owl. So Scops Owls used to include the ones you’re probably thinking, based on that description, the stout little horned owls like the Screech Owl and our new little buddy, the Flammulated Owl.
The problem was that there were too many Scops Owls, that there were enough differences between them three genus got split up. Screech Owls got assigned to Megascops. Flammulated guy assigned to Psiloscops. There’s a few other new Scops genuses, but they usually only have 1 or 2 species in them. Now Otus refers to the Old World (African and Eurasian) Scops Owls. So now Scops are. Basically any owl that looks sorta like a Screech Owl, but isn’t in the Americas.
Flammys are found in those Ponderosa forests of the American West, so it makes sense they’d get that name.
Indian Scops Owl
Thank you so much!
Of course!