Hoax! There's No Eye-Plucking Prehistoric Owl on the Loose

In a world where it's getting harder and harder to tell fact from fiction, it's healthy to be a skeptic about nearly everything you read. Such is the case for recent reports about a successfully cloned prehistoric owl - one far too many science and nature lovers were quick to believe and even republish.

The original article made its debut on Daily Buzz Live - a satirical headliner site that masquerades as a professional news outlet. And if the site's outrageous content and sensationalist headlines aren't enough to let the average reader know that something is amiss, this article in particular should have been a big indicator.

The piece not only claimed that Brazilian scientists had successfully cloned a giant prehistoric owl known as Ornimegalonyx back in 2014, but it also detailed how the same owl recently attacked its keeper, gouging out his eyes with its gaping maw and large talons.

"The prehistoric owl remains in the custody of the scientists for further research and investigation on its behavior," the article reads. "Scientists say they will now take further safety precautions when handling the owl, such as face masks and protective bodysuits." (Scroll to read on...)

It's important to note, however, that while Ornimegalonyx, called the Cuban giant owl, was indeed a real bird that existed tens-of-thousands of years ago (late Pleistocene to early Hologen), successfully cloning such a creature would not be easy. Nor would it be an accomplishment of such minor importance that the average person would only be hearing about it now - a year after the cloning success.

Nature World News has previously discussed the many difficulties real scientists face when attempting to clone a long-extinct species. Genetic information, for one, must come from remarkably well-preserved samples, and remain largely whole and undamaged. This usually means that the sample must be literally frozen in time, leaving only animals that lived in extremely cold and icy climes as contenders for cloning. Ornimegalonyx, which lived in a hot and tropical world, simply doesn't fit the bill.

According to the Natural History Museum in London, a promisingly long strand of seemingly perfect DNA was recently retrieved from a "fresh" 28,000-year-old mammoth by the name of "Buttercup" (discovered in 2013). This has given experts hope that they can replicate and insert the information into a fertilized egg in an Asian elephant surrogate mother. However, this is only possible because giant Asian elephants are very genetically similar to their mammoth ancestors. It remains unclear if there could even be an appropriate surrogate for prehistoric giant owls, as they are quite different from the night hunters on wings we see today.

What's more, the article says that the Ornimegalonyx flew at its keeper before attacking his eyes - an act that the real prehistoric bird, despite being about a meter tall, could never hope to pull off. (Scroll to read on...)

Still, it's important to note that the photographed bird's eyes leave room for doubt - something Shuker readily admits - as your standard potoo does not have pitch-black orbs.

However, a lot is still unknown about a great many species around the world, and it is far easier to believe that what we are seeing is an unusual variant of the potoo and not a revived prehistoric eyeball thief.

Then again, there's no telling what people will believe these days.

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