SNOWY OWL Real Eye Effect 1 Oz Silver Coin 1000 Francs Burkina Faso 2016

Snowy Owl
The snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) is a large, white owl of the typical owl family. Snowy owls are native to Arctic regions in North America and Eurasia. Males are almost all white, while females have more flecks of black plumage. Juvenile snowy owls have black feathers until they turn white. The snowy owl is a ground nester that predominantly hunts rodents. The snowy owl was one of the many bird species originally described by Linnaeus in the landmark 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Strix scandiaca. The genus name Bubo is Latin for the Eurasian eagle-owl and scandiaca is New Latin for Scandinavia. Until recently, the snowy owl was regarded as the sole member of a distinct genus, as Nyctea scandiaca, but mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data (Olsen et al. 2002) shows that it is very closely related to the horned owls in the genus Bubo. However, some authorities debate this classification, still preferring Nyctea.