Orange-eyed owl reappears after 125 years

When a species disappears for a short while there can be many reasons why. Perhaps its habitat is shifting — either due to natural circumstances or human encroachment — or maybe its primary food source has also relocated, forcing them to follow. Sometimes animals disappear from an area because they go extinct, which is obviously a huge bummer, and when a species that was already hard to find in the wild, it can be hard to know if the absence of a species is due to extinction or some other factor.

The Bornean Rajah scops owl was already a rare sight when it was last seen in 1892, but as the decades passed with no new sightings of the bird it would have been hard for scientists to hold out hope that it still existed at all. If a species disappears for a decade it would be easy to assume the worst. When it remains unseen for 50 years? It might feel foolish to believe it is still around. So, when researchers spotted the owl in 2016 after over 125 years since the last confirmed sighting, it felt a whole lot like a miracle.