oh my bad i thought zygodactyl was a taxonomic group lol
also according to wikipedia the closest relatives to owls are new world vultures, hawks, ospreys, and secretary birds:
falcons are pretty close relatives to parrots, so i think i misremembered and that’s one of the reasons i thought parrots and owls were closely related
nightjars are more closely related to potoos and frogmouths, and those 3 seem to just be species that convergently evolved to be like owls (or at least look like them)
My brain cries when I try to stare at all that Latin, but everything I search for about owls closest relatives has always returned the nightjars. I saw a few things saying the hawk/falcon relation was outdated, but genetics are revealing a bunch of surprises and causing lots of recasting of who’s related to who.
I like them all no matter who they’re related to! 😄
oh my bad i thought zygodactyl was a taxonomic group lol
also according to wikipedia the closest relatives to owls are new world vultures, hawks, ospreys, and secretary birds:
falcons are pretty close relatives to parrots, so i think i misremembered and that’s one of the reasons i thought parrots and owls were closely related
nightjars are more closely related to potoos and frogmouths, and those 3 seem to just be species that convergently evolved to be like owls (or at least look like them)
My brain cries when I try to stare at all that Latin, but everything I search for about owls closest relatives has always returned the nightjars. I saw a few things saying the hawk/falcon relation was outdated, but genetics are revealing a bunch of surprises and causing lots of recasting of who’s related to who.
I like them all no matter who they’re related to! 😄