• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

The World’s Smallest Owl May Be Adorable, But Don’t Underestimate It

December 2, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

If you’re as addicted to TikTok as we are, then you may well have recently seen a video of a teeny tiny owl serving absolute face. “Hoo” is this diva? It’s none other than the elf owl, the smallest owl in the world.

Little raptors

When it comes to their size, elf owls live up to the diminutive stature of their fictional namesakes (at least if we discount Tolkien’s elves). As adults, they stand at just 12.4 to 14.2 centimeters (4.9 to 5.6 inches) tall, smaller than your average American pint glass. A lack of ear tufts and a short tail also help keep them on the compact side.

Advertisement

They do, however, have noticeably large, yellow irises, surrounded by a black ring that puts any human attempt at eyeliner to shame. Their eyes stick out in contrast with the rest of their body, which consists of mottled gray, white, and brown feathers, and a small greenish-yellow beak.

close up photograph of an elf owl sitting in a tree during the day

Bro is definitely getting pulled over with pupils like that.

Where do elf owls live?

Elf owls can be found year-round in some parts of Mexico, larger portions of the country when migrating, and during the summer breeding season, can even be spotted as far north as the US border states.

They live in a wide range of habitats in these places, from deserts and dry thorn woodlands to pine-oak and riparian forests. There, they like to nest in holes in cacti and trees, such as those made and then abandoned by woodpeckers.

Scorpions for supper

So far, elf owls seem positively adorable, all tiny, big-eyed, and cozied up in their holey nests – the call of the males even sounds a bit like the squeaky bark of a young puppy. However, it’s at nighttime when they prove that their smarts as predators are just as prominent as their cuteness.

Advertisement

Though they’re more than capable of snacking on a mouse, elf owls primarily feed on insects and arthropods, and do so with skill; they’re known to catch bugs such as moths and beetles in flight or when scurrying on the ground. They even pull a Spider-Man and hang upside down in plants, although the part where they proceed to beat the insects out from the foliage is perhaps not quite so much “friendly neighborhood superhero”.



Elf owls also have a discriminating eye when it comes to some of their more dangerous cuisine. Before chowing down on a wasp or scorpion, they’ll first spend time with their feet and beak deftly plucking out wings and stingers, preferring not to eat those parts.

Not everything they catch ends up as food, however – sometimes prey makes a handy pest removal service. That’s what elf owls do with thread snakes, which they scoop up and take back to the nest, where the snakes gobble up pesky parasites.

Small and resourceful, we love to see it.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: The World’s Smallest Owl May Be Adorable, But Don’t Underestimate It

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Surströmming: Why Sweden’s Stinky Fermented Fish Smells So Bad (But People Still Eat It)
  • First-Ever Recording Of Black Hole Recoil Captured During Merger – And You Can Listen To It
  • The Moon Is Moving Away From Earth At A Rate Of About 3.8 Centimeters Per Year. Will It Ever Drift Apart?
  • As Solar Storm Hits Earth NASA Finds “The Sun Is Slowly Waking Up”
  • Plate Tectonics And CO2 On Planets Suggest Alien Civilizations “Are Probably Pretty Rare”
  • How To Watch The “Awkward” Partial Solar Eclipse This Weekend
  • World’s Oldest Pots: 20,000-Year-Old Vessels May Have Been Used For Cooking Clams Or Brewing Beer
  • “The Body Is Slowly And Continuously Heated”: 14,000-Year-Old Smoked Mummies Are World’s Oldest
  • Pizza Slices, Polaroid Pictures, And Over 300 Hats: What’s Left Behind In Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Areas?
  • The Mathematical Paradox That Lets You Create Something From Nothing
  • Ancient Asteroid Ripped Apart In Collision Had Flowing Water
  • Flying Foxes Include The World’s Biggest Bat And The Largest Mammal Capable Of True Flight
  • NASA Responds To Claims That Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Is An Advanced Alien Spacecraft
  • Millions Of Tons Of Gold Are In Earth’s Oceans, Potentially Worth Over $2 Quadrillion
  • The Race Back To The Moon: US Vs China, Will What Happens Next Change The Future?
  • NOAA Issues G3 Geomagnetic Storm Warning As 500,000 Kilometer Hole Sends Solar Wind At Earth
  • Lasting 776 Days, This Is The Longest Case Of COVID-19 Ever Recorded
  • Living Cement: The Microbes In Your Walls Could Power The Future
  • What Can Your Earwax Reveal About Your Health?
  • Ever Seen A Giraffe Use An Inhaler? Now You Can, And It’s Incredibly Wholesome
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version