Blakiston’s Fish Owl

Blakiston's fish owl (Ketupa blakistoni), the largest living species of owl, is a fish owl, a sub-group of eagle-owls that specialize in hunting in riparian areas. It is native to China, Japan, and the Russian Far East. This species is a part of the family known as typical owls (Strigidae), which contains most species of owl. Blakiston's fish owl and three other piscivorous owls are placed with some eagle-owls in the genus Ketupa. Its habitat is riparian forest with large, old trees for nest sites near lakes, rivers, springs, and shoals that do not freeze in winter. Henry Seebohm named this bird after the English naturalist Thomas Blakiston, who collected the original specimen in Hakodate on Hokkaidō, Japan in 1883. == Taxonomy == Blakiston's fish owl was formally described in 1884 by the English amateur ornithologist Henry Seebohm from a specimen collected near Hakodate on the island of Hokkaido in Japan. He placed the owl in the genus Bubo and coined the binomial name Bubo blakistoni. The specific epithet was chosen to honour the naturalist and explorer Thomas Blakiston who had supplied Seebohm with a specimen. Blakiston's fish owl is more closely related to the Eurasian eagle-owl than to the…