New Britain boobook 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 is endemic to New Britain, the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago in Papua New Guinea. The New Britain boobook is a small owl that grows to a length of about . It has finely spotted chocolate-brown plumage, golden eyes and white eyebrows. Its facial disk is brown while the upper breast is marked with a wide brown band with buff or white barrings. The underparts are densely spotted brown. Its call is a
Southern boobook to "N. connivens". Genetic and call analysis show the Christmas boobook ("N. natalis") to be very close to the Australian populations of the southern boobook, leading Gwee and colleagues to suggest it be reclassified within this species. Gwee and colleagues found that boobook populations on larger mountainous islands were more distinct from Australian stock, while those on flatter smaller islands were much more similar, suggesting that these locations were colonised much more recently after previous populations had become extinct. Eleven subspecies of "Ninox boobook" are recognised in version 7.3 of the IOC World Bird List, published in July 2017: The