What is "great horned owl"

Horned \Horned\,

1. Furnished with a horn or horns; furnished with a hornlike process or appendage; as, horned cattle; having some part shaped like a horn.

   The horned moon with one bright star Within the nether tip.
   --Coleridge.

   Horned bee (Zo["o]l.), a British wild bee ( Osmia bicornis), having two little horns on the head.

   Horned dace (Zo["o]l.), an American cyprinoid fish ( Semotilus corporialis) common in brooks and ponds; the common chu

2. See Illust. of Chub.

   Horned frog (Zo["o]l.), a very large Brazilian frog ( Ceratophrys cornuta), having a pair of triangular horns arising from the eyelids.

   Horned grebe (Zo["o]l.), a species of grebe ( Colymbus auritus), of Arctic Europe and America, having two dense tufts of feathers on the head.

   Horned horse (Zo["o]l.), the gnu.

   Horned lark (Zo["o]l.), the shore lark.

   Horned lizard (Zo["o]l.), the horned toad.

   Horned owl (Zo["o]l.), a large North American owl ( Bubo Virginianus), having a pair of elongated tufts of feathers on the head. Several distinct varieties are known; as, the Arctic, Western, dusky, and striped horned owls, differing in color, and inhabiting different regions; -- called also great horned owl, horn owl, eagle owl, and cat owl. Sometimes also applied to the long-eared owl. See Eared owl, under Eared.

   Horned poppy. (Bot.) See Horn poppy, under Horn.

   Horned pout (Zo["o]l.), an American fresh-water siluroid fish; the bullpout.

   Horned rattler (Zo["o]l.), a species of rattlesnake ( Crotalus cerastes), inhabiting the dry, sandy plains, from California to Mexico. It has a pair of triangular horns between the eyes; -- called also sidewinder.

   Horned ray (Zo["o]l.), the sea devil.

   Horned screamer (Zo["o]l.), the kamichi.

   Horned snake (Zo["o]l.), the cerastes.

   Horned toad (Zo["o]l.), any lizard of the genus Phrynosoma, of which nine or ten species are known. These lizards have several hornlike spines on the head, and a broad, flat body, covered with spiny scales. They inhabit the dry, sandy plains from California to Mexico and Texas. Called also horned lizard.

   Horned viper. (Zo["o]l.) See Cerastes.

n. A large owl, ''Bubo virginianus'', resident in North America, having tufts on its ears.

n. brown North American horned owl [syn: Bubo virginianus]

The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air") or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet appears to be rabbits and hares, rats and mice and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, primarily other rodents and small mammals, but also larger mid-sized mammals, various birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo), a closely related species which, despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), with which it often shares similar habitat, prey and nesting habits by day and is thus something of a diurnal ecological equivalent. The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.