A genomic study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals that barn owls colonized the Americas not via northern land bridges as long assumed, but through an extraordinary transatlantic flight from Eurasia that first established populations in the Caribbean islands.
For decades, evolutionary biologists debated how barn owls managed to populate the Western Hemisphere. Standard theories pointed toward two main overland paths: a trek across Beringia connecting Siberia and Alaska, or a northern migration route utilizing ancient landmasses and islands bridging Europe and North America.
Both scenarios presented a major behavioral hurdle for the birds. Barn owls are tropical and temperate
, David Steadman, an ornithologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, explained in a statement. They can’t handle high latitudes where there’s snow. So, coming over to the Americas via Beringia or the North Atlantic via some blend of Iceland, Greenland and Canada never seemed realistic.
Museum DNA and Mitochondrial Genomes Reveal the Caribbean Origin
To solve the mystery, researchers analyzed genetic material extracted from dozens of barn owl specimens housed in 11 museum collections, with some samples dating back to 1876. Led by Min Zhao, a team at the Florida Museum of Natural History sequenced mitochondrial genomes from 68 owls to reconstruct their evolutionary history.
The findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, point to a single trans-Atlantic arrival from Eurasia. The ancestors of American barn owls landed first in the Greater Antilles—the major northern islands including Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola—before spreading to the Lesser Antilles and eventually reaching the continental Americas.
Caribbean Islands facilitated the colonization of Western Hemisphere barn owls, yet experienced rampant extinction.
Min Zhao et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B
The phylogenomic study dates the split between Eastern and Western Hemisphere barn owls to approximately 5.0 million years ago, with a 95% range spanning from 3.75 to 6.47 million years. While modern barn owls are widespread across the Americas today, the Caribbean holds the highest genetic divergence, confirming the region served as the original diversity center.
Extinct Island Giants and the Mysterious Chickcharney Legend
Before modern barn owls became established on the mainland, the Caribbean supported an astonishing variety of island forms. The fossil review counts six Caribbean barn owl species lost—more than any other island region.
Among them were colossal predators, including the meter-tall Tyto pollens and the Hispaniolan giant barn owl (Tyto ostologa). These enormous birds likely served as the inspiration for the Bahamian chickcharney legend, a mythical elfin creature said to inhabit the islands.
If you see one shoe in the field, it means that chickcharney came, picked up this person and took them away
, said Jessica Oswald, recounting a story she was told in the Bahamas. Oswald visited the islands while she was a postdoctoral associate at the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2017 and 2019.
Human Arrival and the Loss of Native Island Prey
Researchers point to ecological shifts following human settlement as the primary driver of their disappearance. Human arrival in the region began at least 6,000 years ago.
Because the giant owls depended heavily on prey species that did not disappear until humans arrived in the region in the mid- to late Holocene, their extinction accelerated during that time. Today, smaller modern lineages continue to fill ecological niches in the region, such as on Hispaniola where they hunt invasive rats.
Surprises in the Galápagos and Conservation Implications
The DNA analysis also uncovered evidence that barn owls reached the Galápagos Islands on two separate occasions.
- First colonization: A lineage arrived from the Caribbean during the middle Pleistocene, bypassing the continental Americas.
- Second colonization: A later population arrived from South America, establishing a presence on San Cristóbal.
These genetic distinctions carry direct conservation weight. With the American barn owl (Tyto furcata) only formally recognized as a distinct species separate from Old World barn owls in 2024, researchers note that isolated island forms—including the Galápagos form and Antillean lineages—may warrant full species status.
