Tanzania – Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl

Our open cruiser bumped and tossed on the dirt track in Nyerere National Park. It was my last afternoon in Tanzania, and early the next day, I’d be flying a puddle jumper back to the capital. No one else had wanted to go out, so I had the excellent young guide to myself. He eased up, putting his foot on the brake, slowing and stopping while looking slightly to the front and right of the vehicle. I followed his gaze and saw a giant owl sitting, staring right back at us. The pink eyelids right over the dark eyes are a unique characteristic of the Verreaux’s eagle-owl. No other owl species has these wonderfully colored eyelids [1]. I shifted forward in my seat to gaze up at this magnificent member of the Strigidae.

Genetics and Classification

Scientists had classified this species in the genus “Bubo” along with North America’s great horned, snowy, and great gray owls. That made sense, looking at this big bird. Its shape and face, with those “ear” tufts, look like our great horns. Genetic analyses, though, showed that the genus Bubo was paraphyletic, which means it didn’t contain all the descendants of a common ancestor.

It turns out that some species that had been classified in the genus “Ketupa” were in the middle of the Bubo species. The large fishing owls of Asia seemed to be more closely related to the Verreaux’s eagle-owl than to the Bubo species. To have the phyletic tree clean and all the descendants of a common ancestor along the same branch, the taxonomists moved the Verreaux’s eagle-owl and several closely related species into the genus Ketupa. Evolution through adaptation is so magnificent and I love that we learn new things all the time. Bring on the science!

Those Eyes

Those large black eyes with their pink eyelids stared down at me, and my mind went to a great book I’d read. In “Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to find and save the World’s Largest Owl,” Jonathan Slaght [2] tells the story of his conservation work with the Blakiston’s fish owl of Russia. He worked closely with Russian scientists to learn about the habitat requirements of this giant owl. He often worked in freezing temperatures and had to drink a lot of vodka with his colleagues. This Verreaux’s eagle-owl is in that genus.

The bird in front of me is the fourth-largest owl species in the world! It looks much like our great horned. My body tightened in appreciation of what we’d found. Those eyes were intense, and the feathers soft. It was like an apparition sitting in front of me.

I thanked my guide, who tilted his head slightly, and we moved along. My heart, though, lingered a little longer at that spot.

  A portfolio from Tanzania can be found at www.thomasbancroft.com

1.         Wikipedia. Verreaux’s eagle-owl. 2025  27 December 2025]; Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verreaux%27s_eagle-owl.

2.         Slaght, J.C., Owls of the eastern ice: a quest to find and save the world’s largest owl. First edition. ed. 2020, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 348 pages.