Elanus

<i>Elanus</i>

Elanus

Genus of birds-of-prey

Elanus is a genus of bird of prey in the elanine kite subfamily. It was introduced by the French zoologist Jules-César Savigny in 1809 with the black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus) as the type species.[2][3] The name is from the Ancient Greek elanos for a "kite".[4]

Quick Facts Elanus, Scientific classification ...

These are white and grey raptors of open country, with black wing markings and a short square tail. They hunt by slowly quartering over mainly savanna habitat for rodents and other small mammals, birds and insects, sometimes hovering like a kestrel. The primaries and secondaries have soft barbules from the upper surface that help in owl-like silent flight. The genus Elanus is distinctive in having very small scales covering the foot and on the underside, scutellate scales are found only under the terminal phalanges. The claw lacks a groove on the underside. They also have eyesight suited for crepuscular rodent hunting.[5][6] The genus contains four species, all of which hunt small mammals, especially rodents, by hovering in the air while looking for them in over open savanna habitats.[7] For some time, these species were all included as subspecies of Elanus caeruleus, which has been known as the black-shouldered kite.[8][9][10]

The letter-winged kite breeds colonially and is nocturnal. The other species are both diurnal and crepuscular.[6][11]

More information Common name, Scientific name and subspecies ...


Notes

    References

    1. [1]
      "Accipitridae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
    2. [2]
      Savigny, Jules-César (1809). Jomard, Edme-François (ed.). Description de l'Égypte, ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française, publié par les ordres de sa Majesté l'Empereur Napoléon le Grand (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie Impériale. pp. 69, 97–98.
    3. [3]
      Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 290.
    4. [4]
      Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
    5. [5]
      Keirnan, Aubrey; Worthy, Trevor H.; Smaers, Jeroen B.; Mardon, Karine; Iwaniuk, Andrew N.; Weisbecker, Vera (2022). "Not like night and day: the nocturnal letter-winged kite does not differ from diurnal congeners in orbit or endocast morphology". Royal Society Open Science. 9 (5). Bibcode:2022RSOS....920135K. doi:10.1098/rsos.220135. ISSN 2054-5703. PMC 9128852. PMID 35620001.
    6. [6]
      Negro, Juan J.; Pertoldi, Cino; Randi, Ettore; Ferrero, Juan J.; López-Caballero, José M.; Rivera, Domingo; Korpimäki, Erkki (2006). Boal, Clint (ed.). "Convergent evolution of Elanus kites and the owls". Journal of Raptor Research. 40 (3): 222–225. doi:10.3356/0892-1016(2006)40[222:CEOEKA]2.0.CO;2. hdl:10261/33813. ISSN 0892-1016. S2CID 85004744.
    7. [7]
      Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2017). "New World vultures, Secretarybird, kites, hawks & eagles". World Bird List Version 7.3. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
    8. [8]
      Parkes, Kenneth C. (1958). "Specific relationships in the genus Elanus" (PDF). Condor. 60 (2): 139–40. doi:10.2307/1365270. JSTOR 1365270.
    9. [9]
      Clark, William S.; Banks, Richard C. (1992). "The taxonomic status of the White-tailed Kite" (PDF). The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. 104 (4): 571–79.
    10. [10]
      Check-list of North American Birds (6th ed.). Lawrence, Kansas: American Ornithologists' Union. 1983. p. 103. ISBN 0-943610-32-X.
    11. [11]
      Ridgway, Robert (1900). A manual of North American Birds. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co. p. 222.

    Other sources

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elanus.
    • Ferguson-Lees, Christie, Franklin, Mead and Burton Raptors of the World ISBN 0-7136-8026-1
    Share this article:

    This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Elanus, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.