Laughing Owl - Ecology and Behaviour

Ecology and Behaviour

The Laughing Owl generally occupied rocky, low rainfall areas. It was also found in forest districts on the North Island. Their diet was diverse, encompassing a wide range of prey items, from beetles and weta up to birds and geckos of more than 250 grams, and later on rats and mice. Laughing Owls were apparently ground feeders, chasing prey on foot in preference to hunting on the wing. Knowledge on their diet, and how that diet changed over time, is preserved in fossil and sub-fossil deposits of their pellets. These pellets have been a boon to the paleobiological research of New Zealand's late Pleistocene and Holocene animal communities, creating concentrations of otherwise poorly preserved small bones: "Twenty-eight species of bird, a tuatara, 3 frogs, at least 4 geckos, 1 skink, 2 bats, and 2 fish contribute to the species diversity" found in a Gouland Downs roosting site's pellets (Worthy, 2001)
The owls' diet generally reflected the communities of small animals in the area, taking prions (small seabirds) where they lived near colonies, Coenocorypha snipe, kakariki and even large earthworms. Once Pacific Rats were introduced to New Zealand and began to reduce the number of native prey items the Laughing Owl was able to switch to eating them instead. They were still therefore relatively common when European settlers arrived. Being quite large, they were also able to deal with the introduced European rats that had caused the extinction of so much of their prey; however, the stoats introduced to control feral rabbits, and feral cats were too much for the species.

Individuals of a bird louse of the genus Strigiphilus were found to parasitize Laughing Owls (Pilgrim & Palma, 1982).