• Summary
• Text account
• Data table and detailed info
• Distribution map
• Reference and further resources

Taxonomic note
Ptilopsis leucotis and P. granti (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) were previously placed in the genus Otus and lumped as O. leucotis following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993).

Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

Red List criteria met

Critically Endangered	Endangered	Vulnerable
-	-	-

Red List history

Year	Category	Criteria
2024	Least Concern
2016	Least Concern
2014	Least Concern
2012	Not Recognised
2008	Not Recognised
2004	Not Recognised
2000	Not Recognised
1994	Not Recognised
1988	Not Recognised

Migratory status	not a migrant	Forest dependency	medium
Land-mass type		Average mass	204 g

	Estimate	Data quality
Extent of Occurrence (breeding/resident)	11,500,000 km2	medium
Severely fragmented?	no	-

	Estimate	Data quality	Derivation	Year of estimate
Population size	unknown	-	-	-
Population trend	decreasing	-	suspected	-
Generation length	5 years	-	-	-

Population justification: The global population size has not been quantified, but the species is reported to be locally common to uncommon (del Hoyo et al. 1999). This species is considered to have a medium dependency on forest habitat, and tree cover is estimated to have declined by 8.6% within its mapped range over the past three generations (Global Forest Watch 2022, using Hansen et al. [2013] data and methods disclosed therein). Therefore, as a precautionary measure, it is tentatively suspected that this loss of cover may have led to a decline of between 1-19% in the species' population size over the same time frame.

Trend justification:   .

Country/Territory	Presence	Origin	Resident	Breeding visitor	Non-breeding visitor	Passage migrant
Benin	extant	native	yes
Burkina Faso	extant	native	yes
Cameroon	extant	native	yes
Central African Republic	extant	native	yes
Chad	extant	native	yes
Congo, The Democratic Republic of the	extant	native	yes
Côte d'Ivoire	extant	native	yes
Djibouti	extant	native	yes
Eritrea	extant	native	yes
Ethiopia	extant	native	yes
Gambia	extant	native	yes
Ghana	extant	native	yes
Guinea	extant	native	yes
Guinea-Bissau	extant	native	yes
Kenya	extant	native	yes
Liberia	extant	native	yes
Mali	extant	native	yes
Mauritania	extant	native	yes
Niger	extant	native	yes
Nigeria	extant	native	yes
Senegal	extant	native	yes
Sierra Leone	extant	native	yes
Somalia	extant	native	yes
South Sudan	extant	native	yes
Sudan	extant	native
Togo	extant	native	yes
Uganda	extant	native	yes

Country/Territory	IBA Name

Habitat (level 1)	Habitat (level 2)	Importance	Occurrence
Artificial/Terrestrial	Urban Areas	suitable	resident
Desert	Hot	marginal	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland	suitable	resident
Savanna	Dry	suitable	resident
Shrubland	Subtropical/Tropical Dry	suitable	resident
Altitude	0 - 2350 m	Occasional altitudinal limits

Purpose	Scale
Pets/display animals, horticulture	international

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Northern White-faced Owl Ptilopsis leucotis. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/northern-white-faced-owl-ptilopsis-leucotis on 18/12/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 18/12/2024.