The owl lives in old-growth forests. There is about 15 square kilometers of old growth forest left on Principe, and about 1000-1500 Principe scops owls live there. Its call sounds like "tuu." They start calling as soon as the sun goes down.[1]
Discovery
Scientists thought this bird was there since 1928. They became pretty sure it was there in 1997. In July 2016, someone took a photograph of an unknown Otus owl on Príncipe. The image was published on Ornithomedia.[3] People had heard Otus owls calling there since the early 1900s, but no one had been sure. In 2022, scientists caught a few owls and wrote the first formal paper describing it. They named it Otus bikegila.[4] In 2022, scientists wrote the first paper saying exactly what it looked like.[1]
Name
Scientists named this bird after a park ranger named Ceciliano do Bom Jesus. "Bikegila" is his nickname.[1]
Threats
The scientists who wrote about the bird asked the IUCN to name it critically endangered because its home is so small and because human beings want to make a hydroelectric dam in part of the forest where it lives. As of 2022, the IUCN has not made a report on this bird yet.[1]
