page_title: List of largest birds
section_title: Owls (Strigiformes)
hierarchical_section_title: List of largest birds / Largest extant birds / By families / Owls (Strigiformes)
caption_attribution_description: English: Tinamus tao, commonly known as azulona. The original photo has been modified by adjusting tone and brightness, sharpening, removal of an artificial object and cropping.
context_page_description: The largest extant bird species, a member of the Struthioniformes, is the ostrich, from the plains of Africa and Arabia. A large male ostrich can reach a height of 2.8 metres and weigh over 156 kilograms. A mass of 200 kg has been cited for the ostrich but no wild ostriches of this massive weight have been verified. Eggs laid by the ostrich can weigh 1.4 kg and are the largest eggs in the world today.
  The largest extant bird by wingspan is the wandering albatross of the sub-Antarctic oceans. The maximum dimensions in this species are a length of 1.44 m and a wingspan of 3.65 m.
context_section_description: The most massive owl is certainly either the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) or the endangered and similarly sized Blakiston's fish owl (Bubo blakistoni) of coastal Russia and Japan. Record-sized specimens of both species have weighed about 4.5 kg (9.9 lb) and measured over 0.75 m (2.5 ft) long. In either species, the wingspan can range up to 2 m (6.6 ft). Longer still, but not as massive as the previous species (never more than 1.8 kg (4.0 lb) in weight), a large female great gray owl (Strix nebulosa) from the northern boreal forest can range up to 0.83 m (2.7 ft).
  The largest of the barn or masked owl family is the Tasmanian masked owl (Tyto novaehollandiae castanops), which weighs up to 1.4 kg (3.1 lb) and measures to 0.6 m (2.0 ft). The largest owl known to have existed was Ornimegalonyx oteroi of Cuba, a uniquely cursorial owl. The giant bird was estimated to stand over 1.1 m (3.6 ft) on the ground and to weigh at least 9.05 kg (20.0 lb).
caption: In an order of elusive, forest dwelling birds, the grey tinamou ranks as the largest species
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