Hoot Owl Skull Replica and Great Horned Owl Negative Footprint are museum quality polyurethane cast. Made in USA.
The Hoot Owl or Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the tiger owl or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas.
Hoot Owl or Great horned owl is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas.
Its primary diet is rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, including rodents and other small mammals, larger mid-sized mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates.
The Hoot Owl or Great horned owl is the heaviest extant owl in Central and South America and is the second-heaviest owl in North America, after the closely related but very different-looking snowy owl. It is heavily built, with a barrel-shaped body, a large head, and broad wings.
Its size can vary considerably across its range, with populations in interior Alaska and Ontario being largest and populations in California and Texas being smallest.
Hoot Owl or Great horned owl females are somewhat larger than males. Mean body weight is 3.545 lb. for females and 2.698 lb. for males.
The wing chord length is 11.7–15.7 in. The wing loading, the measured wing area compared to weight, is high. The tail, being relatively short is typical of most owls, is 6.9 to 9.9 in. long.
Like other owl species, the great horned owl is capable of “silent flight”, which is the way owls fly while making almost no discernable noise, despite their large size.
Silent flight is made possible thanks to three main components of the owl’s wing structure. The leading edge of their feathers have serrations that help to disrupt the turbulence generated by wing flapping, then the softer feathers help deaden the sound, and finally the trailing fringe of the feathers works to finish cutting the sounds made by flight.
The structure of the Hoot Owl or Great horned owl wing also allows it to fly at a very low speeds for the size of the species, as slow as 2 miles per hour when they are gliding on breezes.
The legs, feet, and talons are large and powerful. Tarsal length is 2.1–3.1 in. The average foot span of a fully spread foot, from talon to talon, is around 7.9 in.
Hoot Owl or Great horned owl can apply at least 300 lb. of crushing power in their talons, a pressure considerably greater than the human hand is capable of exerting. In some larger females, the gripping power of the great horned owl may be comparable to much larger raptor species such as the golden eagle.
