[2] Regarded by some authors as a subspecies of the common barn owl (Tyto alba), it is recognized by others as a species in its own right.

[3] The species was named by Allan Octavian Hume after the collector Frederik Adolph de Roepstorff who shot it at Aberdeen, Andamans.

It is almost uniformly dark reddish-brown above, with some speckling of buffish-orange, and a more yellowish torso than the common barn owl.

The voice has been described as a rather high-pitched, short, rasping, descending shriek which terminates abruptly and is repeated several times.

It feeds on small rodents, and the bones of mice and rats have been found in regurgitated pellets beneath roosting places.