The barn owl in systems and behavioral neuroscience: Progress and promise

Though well-adapted to their evolutionary niches, animals exhibit a repertoire of behavioral functions that are common across species. Neuroscientific research that promotes the study of similar functions in multiple species, can illuminate shared versus specialized design features of the nervous system, revealing potentially profound insights into the neural basis of behavior and cognition. Here, we advance the idea that the barn owl is an excellent animal model in which to investigate such common functions. We do so by drawing attention to the range of exciting questions that can be asked in the owl beyond those deriving from its evolutionary specializations, by underscoring the variety of complex yet experimentally tractable behaviors it exhibits naturally, by emphasizing its complex network of brain systems, and by highlighting emerging opportunities for the application of modern neural technologies. Our goal is to motivate broader adoption of the powerful barn owl model for behavioral and systems neuroscience.