Northern Hawk-Owl - Phylogeny

Phylogeny

Northern Hawk Owls are the only representative of the genus Surnia, and no known fossil relatives exist. When the nearest relatives of the Northern Hawk Owl were unknown, Voous and Cameron (1989) initially noted similarities with the Glaucidium owls based on ear morphology and facial characteristics. In 1991, Schmutz and Moker first reported the karyotype of the Northern Hawk Owl and found it to resemble considerably that of the genus Athene. Maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees created from nucleotide sequencing of the cyctochrome b gene demonstrated that Surnia and Glaucidium form a paraphyletic group.