spectacled owl facts 🦉 native to the neotropics 🦉

The spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata) is a large tropical owl native to the neotropics. It is a resident breeder in forests from southern Mexico and Trinidad, through Central America, south to southern Brazil, Paraguay and northwestern Argentina. There are six subspecies. It is unmistakable in most of its range with blackish brown upperparts, head and upper breast, white facial markings and whitish to yellowish-ochre underparts. The eyes are yellow, the only Pulsatrix with this eye color, and the beak is pale. The juvenile is even more distinctive than the adult, being completely white apart from a chocolate brown facial disc. The head is typically darker than the back and mantle but the shade of this area besides the composition of the breast band is the main distinguishing external feature of the subspecies. The tawny-browed owl, found from northeastern Argentina to eastern Brazil, is fairly similar in appearance to the spectacled but is marked smaller with ochraceous-tawny from the eyebrows down to