According to one authority, DNA evidence suggests that the two species are not closely related.

[6] The epithet hoskinsii commemorates Francis Hoskins, an assistant to Marston Abbott Frazar, an ornithologist who the American businessman George B. Sennett paid to collect birds in the 1880s.

The first specimen of the Baja pygmy owl was collected on one of Frazar's expeditions.

[6] Its plumage is sandy gray-brown, with females typically more reddish than males.

[8] The cape pygmy owl is endemic to Baja California Sur from the Sierra de la Laguna in the Cape District, where it is fairly common, to the Sierra de la Giganta at least as far north as 26.5°N.