New Britain boobook suspected to be rarer than had previously been assumed because its rainforest habitat was being degraded by logging and forest clearance for conversion to oil palm plantations. Following the re-evaluation of its population size, this assumption was found to be correct and its numbers are now thought to be within the range of 15,000 to 30,000 individuals. Its total range is less than so its category was subsequently changed to "Vulnerable" status in 2008. New Britain boobook The New Britain boobook ("Ninox odiosa"), also known as the spangled boobook, New Britain hawk-owl or Russet hawk-owl, is a small owl that
Southern boobook boobook" in 1801, writing about it in English, before giving it its scientific name, taking its species epithet from a local Dharug word for the bird. The species description was based on a painting by Thomas Watling of a bird—the holotype—in the Sydney district in the 1790s. John Gould described "Athene marmorata" in 1846 from a specimen in South Australia; this is regarded as a synonym. German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup classified the two taxa into subgenus "Spiloglaux" of a new genus "Ieraglaux" in 1852, renaming "S. boobook" to "Ieraglaux (Spiloglaux) bubuk". In his 1865 "Handbook to the Birds of