Black-and-white hawk-eagle

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"Spizaetus melanoleucus" redirects here. This name was also used for the Black-chested buzzard-eagle.

Black-and-white hawk-eagle

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Accipitriformes
Family: Accipitridae
Genus: Spizaetus
Species:
S. melanoleucus
Binomial name
Spizaetus melanoleucus
(Vieillot, 1816)
Synonyms

Buteo melanoleucus Vieillot, 1816
Spizastur melanoleucus (Vieillot, 1816)

The black-and-white hawk-eagle (Spizaetus melanoleucus, formerly Spizastur melanoleucus) is a

tropical America, from southern Mexico to northern Argentina.[2]

Description

A Black-and-white hawk-eagle in captivity.

As its name suggests, this is a black and white eagle, resembling the small typical eagles sometimes separated in "

cere.[3]

The sexes are alike in color, but the female is larger. Immature birds have pale edges on the upper wing coverts and some brownish-grey feathers on the back.[3]

The black-and-white hawk-eagle is hard to confuse with any other bird in its range with the exception of juvenile Grey-headed Kites. These birds are known to mimic several species of hawk-eagles.[4] The black-faced hawk (Leucopternis melanops) is very similar in overall coloration, but it is much smaller and has a black tail with a single bold white bar in the middle. The ornate hawk-eagle (Spizaetus ornatus), presumably a very close relative of S. melanoleucus, looks quite similar when young. However, the wings, back and tail are much lighter in young S. ornatus, and they do not have the black eye-ring.[3]

Distribution and ecology

This species occurs from

Loreto Region of NE Peru; it is not known in how far this is isolated from the rest of the bird's range. The species is absent from the western Amazon basin, and even though it might not common in the lands to the east (e.g. in Minas Gerais),[3][5] there has been at least one nest described in the region.[6]

Its natural

ASL in the Buena Vista Nature Reserve in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.[3][5][7]

The food of this

squamates and in particular a wide variety of birds. Among the latter, it is known to prefer tree-living species, such as oropendolas, aracaris, tanagers and cotingas. But ground- and waterbirds like tinamous, chachalacas, wood quails, cormorants and the highly threatened Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus) have also been recorded as its prey.[8] The black-and-white hawk-eagle has been known to attack small monkeys, though it is not clear with which intent. For as it seems, it has not been recorded to actually kill and eat a monkey, but more significant mammal prey may be opossums.[3][8]

Its preferred hunting technique is to soar high until it has spotted suitable prey, and then dive down on it, usually right into the

mobbing it in mid-air, after launching itself from its perch.[9] It likes to hunt along ridges and forest edges where it can access the canopy-level from an oblique direction rather than just from directly above, and where ground-living prey is also more accessible.[3]

A rescued animal, photo taken in captivity in Argentina

It nests in the forest canopy, building a stick nest high up in exposed trees on ridges and similar locations, from where good hunting grounds can be watched. Detailed observations on its nesting habits are escarce. In Brazil, researchers found and described a nest in 2006 in Southeast Brazil,

rainy season. But the main nesting season may start before the onset of the rainy season as the nesting attempt was abandoned when heavy rains recommenced. The scant other data agrees with this, and at least in Central America the nesting season seems to run from March to June or so.[3]

There is a general lack of information on the black-and-white hawk-eagle's movements and population status. Each bird seems to require a hunting territory of about 3,500 acres (1,400 hectares) at least. While the variety of habitat types in which it is found suggests that it is not particularly susceptible to changes in land use, it is apparently still a rare and local species almost anywhere in its range. The

Least Concern.[1][3][7][9]

Taxonomy and systematics

This species is often placed in the

sister taxon.[11] This has created quite some taxonomic
confusion, which has largely gone unnoticed however:

Originally, the name Spizaetus melanoleucus was given by Louis Pierre Vieillot to the black-chested buzzard-eagle in 1819, while the black-and-white hawk-eagle had been described in 1816 by the very same scientist as Buteo melanoleucus. The former species was placed in Geranoaetus – also a monotypic genus – in 1844, while the black-and-white hawk-eagle had been moved out of Buteo and into Spizastur a few years earlier.[3][12]

Thus, the identical

senior homonym could not be applied to the later-described species. The correct specific name for the black-chested eagle-buzzard when placed in Buteo, Buteo fuscescens, was reestablished in the mid-20th century for a short time more by accident than anything else;[14] as most late-20th-century researchers argued for retaining Geranoaetus, this name was dismissed as erroneous and essentially forgotten.[15]

As the black-and-white hawk-eagle has not been placed in Buteo since long, Article 59.3 of the

senior synonym
of the other species.

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T22696120A168673031.en
    . Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  2. ^ "Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle | Whitehawk Birding Blog". 9 July 2020. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  3. ^
    ISBN 84-87334-15-6
  4. ^ Menq, William (2013). "Mimicry in birds of prey" (PDF). whitehawkbirding.com.
  5. ^ a b Zorzin, Giancarlo; Carvalho, Carlos Eduardo Alencar; de Carvalho Filho, Eduardo Pio Mendes & Canuto, Marcus (2006). "Novos registros de Falconiformes raros e ameaçados para o estado de Minas Gerais" [New records of rare and threatened Falconiformes for the state of Minas Gerais] (PDF). Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia (in Portuguese and English). 14 (4): 417–421. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2010. Retrieved 30 October 2008.
  6. ^ a b Canuto, Marcus (2008). "First Description of the Nest of the Black-and-White Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus melanoleucus) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, Southeast Brazil" (PDF). whitehawkbirding.com.
  7. ^ a b Strewe, Ralf & Navarro, Cristobal (2004). "New and noteworthy records of birds from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region, north-eastern Colombia" (PDF). Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 124 (1): 38–51. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 December 2005.
  8. ^ a b Ferguson-Lees, J. & Christie, D.A. & Franklin, K. & Mead, D. & Burton, P.. (2001). Raptors of the world. Helm Identification Guides.
  9. ^ a b Olmos, Fábio; Pacheco, José Fernando & Silveira, Luís Fábio (2006). "Notas sobre aves de rapina (Cathartidae, Acciptridae e Falconidae) brasileiras" [Notes on Brazilian birds of prey] (PDF). Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia (in Portuguese and English). 14 (4): 401–404. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 December 2008.
  10. ^ Phillips, Ryan (2009). "Studying Hawk-Eagles in Belize" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
  11. doi:10.1642/0004-8038(2007)124[1109:FSTTAO]2.0.CO;2
    .
  12. ISBN 84-87334-15-6
  13. JSTOR 4076880
    .
  14. Field Mus. Nat. Hist. Zool. Ser. 13 (Part 1(4)): 144
    –148.
  15. JSTOR 1365146
    .
  16. ISBN 0-85301-006-4

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Spizastur melanoleucus.
Wikispecies has information related to Spizaetus melanoleucus.
  • Amorim, James Faraco & Piacentini, Vítor de Queiroz (2006): Novos registros de aves raras em Santa Catarina, Sul do Brasil, incluindo os primeiros registros documentados de algumas espécies para o Estado [New records of rare birds, and first reports of some species, in the state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil]. Revista Brasileira de Ornitologia 14(2): 145–149 [Portuguese with English abstract]. PDF fulltext Electronic supplement
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