The Karthala Scops Owl, or Comoro Scops Owl (Otus pauliani) is an owl endemic to the Comoro Islands.
This species is a part of the larger grouping of owls known as typical owls, Strigidae, which contains most species of owl. The other grouping is the barn owls, Tytonidae.
This owl is found only on Mount Karthala, an active volcano on Grand Comoro. It has an estimated population of 2,000. It is classified as Critically Endangered due to it being restricted to such as small area, which is being rapidly deforested.
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“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)