Are barn owls raptors

Answer 1

Yes.

Personally I would say "No". But I think the honest answer is that we just don't know. And begs the question: "What do you mean by a "raptor"?" Do you mean a bird, a predator with a hooked bill for tearing flesh and strong, piercing talons for grabbing and holding prey? Or are you thinking of something you saw in the cinema, a T-rex maybe? A giant flesh eating dinosaur. And are they in fact the same?

The finding, describing, classifying of birds (or any organisms) is called "Taxonomy" and is still an evolving process. Historically a lot of biologists would have classified Owls (and there are two main types of owl) differently from raptors, based on their appearance and their jizz (behaviours).

But now I'm guessing that both our ability to read DNA, and the increasing number of finds of dinosaurs with feathers, and with wings, has shaken things up more than a little in the past few years. Recent evidence suggests owls may have a history going back at least to the last great extinction event (65.5 million years ago); and there is confusion there about whether they were related to raptors. Whilst leading to the opposite conculsion recent DNA examination suggest that owls are much more closely related to birds like nightjars, than they are to falcons (which are definitely raptors).

But to go back to that first question: "What do you mean by a "raptor"?" Because if you mean a bird, a predator, with a hooked bill for tearing flesh and strong, piercing talons for grabbing and holding prey? Then that description cleary fits and owl. And you must conclude that an owl is a raptor.

But if you are trying to classify birds according to their origins, their relatives, their DNA, and not just their behaviours (which are an adaption to their environemnt), then you might say no Owls are a different and belong in a different order to raptors.

So I guess that's the honest answer. It depends on what you mean by the uestion. And if you want one based on the owls heritage, we still don't really know. It's something biologists will be working on for some time to come.

Answer 2

no idiot there warm blooded