The flammulated owl has been found to be marginally closer to the screech owls than to the scops owls, but by no means robustly or reliably so. If the scops and screech owl clade indeed originated in the Old World, the flammulated owl's ancestors either colonized the Americas independently from but at about the same time and from much the same stock as the screech owls', or they diverged immediately after the latter had settled in the New World. In any case, ""Otus" flammeolus" now usually warrants separation in its own monotypic genus as this would best agree with the available data. It has been retained in "Otus" simply because it does not have the characteristic "song" or rapid trill of "Megascops".