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Serendib Scops Owl

Otus thilohoffmanni

Status: Endangered. Otus thilohoffmanni has a very small range, and a small population, and is threatened by habitat degradation.

There is a creature who lives in the forests of Sri Lanka known as the Devil-Bird, or ulama. It flies silently through the darkness, unseen, but not unheard, for its horrific screaming cry brings chills to all who hear it, and makes them fear impending calamity. Accounts from those who heard the cry, describe it as though someone were being tortured, or strangled.

There is a legend of a woman whose husband murdered her child and served to his wife a gristly curry in which she found a severed finger. In grief and fury, she underwent a metamorphosis into the ulama. Her voice rose in a terrible wail to haunt the jungles. It is a blood-curdling sound that can be heard in the night, and to hear it means a death is portended.

It is suspected that the sound comes from an owl cryptid of some sort, though the identity of the creature that emits it has never been determined.

 

References:
Tennent, James Emerson (1861). Sketches of the natural history of Ceylon with narratives and anecdotes. London: Longman, Green. pp. 246-248. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sketches_of_the_natural_history_of_Ceylo/F6E5AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=ulama

"Devil Bird of Ceylon". The Sunday Times. No. 1113. New South Wales, Australia. 19 May 1907. p. 3 (The Sunday Times Magazine Section). Retrieved 3 August 2020 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/126269451