Owl Owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight. Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl. Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except polar ice caps and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families: the true (or typical) owl family, Strigidae,
Genomic evolution of birds possibility of genomic expansion in mammals and reptiles. Also, there is no such genomic loss in any vertebrate group as great as that of birds. Its possible that the early chromosomic fragmentation event that lead to the appearance of microchromosomes in birds significantly contributed to this gene loss. These fragmentation events must have taken place in a common ancestor of most birds, since approximately every two out of three species studied have at least 30 pairs of microchromosomes, 2n = 80 being the size of the average karyotype of birds (with the only exception the family Falconidae, which are 2n