Puerto Rican Owl (Gymnasio nudipes) — Vorstman's Guide to the Birds of the Caribbean

Voice

The territorial song is a short, fairly low, guttural, toad-like trill, rrrrrrr. Also a soft, cackling goo-goo and a loud coo-coo.

Listen: SongXC999407

Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto

Identification

20–25 cm, small and compact, with a round head without or with barely visible ear tufts. There are three colour morphs: brown (most birds), rufous (fairly common) and grey (rare). The upperparts are finely vermiculated, the underparts paler with dark streaks and fine cross-barring. The face is plain, with pale eyebrows; the eyes are brown, the bill greenish yellow. The long legs are bare and pale brown to greyish yellow. Females are slightly heavier than males.

Confusion species

There is no other small owl in Puerto Rico. Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus is much larger, has yellow eyes in dark patches and hunts over open country. Bare-legged Owl Margarobyas lawrencii also has bare legs and brown eyes, but lives only in Cuba.

Habitat

Almost all forest types, from dry coastal forest to moist lowland and montane forest, also limestone forest, coffee plantations, parks and suburbs with large trees. Its food is mainly large arthropods such as cockroaches, grasshoppers and moths, also frogs, lizards, rodents and small birds. It nests in tree cavities from April to June, laying up to three eggs.

Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.

Range and movements

Endemic to Puerto Rico, where it occurs throughout the main island. The Virgin Islands subspecies newtoni (St Croix, St John, St Thomas) has not been reliably recorded since the mid-19th century and is probably extinct.

Resident
dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Density map from the occurrence records of GBIF (2006-10-01 – 2026-09-30), counted per 0.18° grid cell and per month and divided by all bird records in that same cell — so the number of birdwatchers does not shape the picture. Colour depth follows that share and fades out gradually, so the map does not follow national borders. Country outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).

How and when to look

Best after dusk in forested areas such as the Guánica dry forest and the El Yunque rainforest, where the trilling song is often heard. By day the owl roosts hidden in dense cover or a cavity.

Conservation status

Not threatened; the population is estimated at more than 10,000 mature birds and appears stable. It has disappeared from the Virgin Islands.

Scientific name

Gymnasio nudipes | (Daudin, 1800) (GBIF: Megascops nudipes)

Daudin described the species in 1800 as Strix nudipes; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Gymnasio was introduced in 1854 by Bonaparte. Gymnasio combines the Greek gumnos 'naked' with the owl genus Asio, after the unfeathered legs. nudipes is Latin, from nudus 'naked' and pes 'foot', after the unfeathered legs. The specimen the first description was based on came from Puerto Rico.