The ferruginous pygmy owl (Glaucidium brasilianum) is a small owl that breeds in south-central Arizona and southern Texas in the United States, south through Mexico and Central America, to South America into Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.

The ferruginous pygmy owl was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3] Although not cited directly, Gmelin's description was ultimately based on the "Cabure" that had been described in 1648 by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.

The ferruginous pygmy owl is small, typically 15 cm (5.9 in), and stocky with disproportionately large feet and talons.

It is easily imitated, and is used by birdwatchers to attract small birds intent on mobbing the pygmy owls.

The northernmost subspecies, G. b. cactorum, commonly called the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, was a listed Endangered species under the U.S.

Buffel grass catches fire very easily, which spreads to cacti, burning the owl's primary habitat.