The Cretan Owl (Athene cretensis) is an extinct species of owl from the Pleistocene of the island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean. It was first named by Weesie in 1982. In life, it would have been at least 2 feet tall, and flightless or nearly flightless. The Cretan Owl went extinct a while after humans began inhabiting Crete.
Famous quotes containing the word owl:
“For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far; such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it was making it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)