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Information about Aquila (genus)

Aquila
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Adult Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

Adult Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Falconiformes
Family:Accipitridae
Subfamily:Buteoninae (disputed)
Genus:Aquila
Species


See text
Synonyms


Hieraaetus Kaup, 1844
and see text


Aquila is the genus of true eagles. It is often united with the buteos, sea eagles and other more heaviset Accipitridae, but more recently it appears as if they are less distinct from the more slender accipitrine hawks than believed. Eagles are not a natural group but denote essentially any bird of prey large enough to hunt sizeable (about 50 cm long or more overall) vertebrate prey.

Species

Aquila belongs to an extremely close-knit group of "typical" eagles. These include genera like Hieraaetus, Lophaetus, Ictinaetus and the extinct Harpagornis, and all these appear to be paraphyletic with regards to the traditional Aquila. Especially some of not all species of Hieraaetus, separated primarily due to their smaller size, seem to belong here. The entire "typical eagle" group is in need of a thorough revision, and thus this species list cannot be more than a tentative one at present.

Most problematic is certainly Hieraeetus, the hawk-eagles. It is known that the type species, the Booted Eagle, is very close to some Aquila eagles. Other hawk-eagles might indeed be distinct enough to warrant generic separation, but the name Hieraaetus is not available for them, being a junior synonym of Aquila as the Booted Eagle is included herein.

Fossil record

Numerous fossil taxa of eagles have been described. Many have been moved to other genera, but several appear correctly assigned to this genus:
  • ?Aquila delphinensis (Middle/Late Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban, France)
  • ?Aquila pennatoides (Middle/Late Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban, France)
  • Aquila sp. (Late Miocene - Late Pliocene of S Europe)[1]
  • Aquila sp. (Early Pliocene of Florida)
  • Aquila bivia (Late Pliocene of S USA)
  • Aquila sp. (Middle Pleistocene of Castiglione, Corsica)[2]
  • ?Aquila fossilis (Middle/Late Pleistocene of Monte Reale, Sardinia)
It is not clear whether "Hieraaetus" edwardsi (Middle -? Late Miocene of SW Europe) belongs into Aquila or the hawk-eagles (if the latter are indeed distinct).

Not placed in Aquila anymore are:
  • "Aquila" gervaisii, now in Palaeohierax
  • "Aquila" sodalis, now in Buteogallus
  • "Aquila" pliogryps, now in Spizaetus
  • "Aquila" corroyi, "A." depredator, "A." hypogaea and "A." prisca are now in Aquilavus
"Aquila" danana (Snake Creek Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Loup Fork, USA), occasionally placed in Geranoaetus or Buteo, was a bird of prey of unclear relationships.

The subfossil "Aquila" borrasi was later placed in Titanohierax, but does not seem to belong there either.

"Aquila" ferox and "Aquila" lydekkeri were not eagles at all, but protostrigid owls belonging to the genus Minerva.

For paleosubspecies, see species accounts.

Footnotes

1. ^ Mlíkovský (2002): p.194
2. ^ Salotti et al. (2000)

References

  • Mlíkovský, Jirí (2002): Cenozoic Birds of the World, Part 1: Europe. Ninox Press, Prague. ISBN 80-901105-3-8 PDF fulltext
  • Salotti, Michelle; Bellot-Gourlet, Ludovic; Courtois, Jean-Yves; Dubois, Jean-Noël; Louchart, Antoine; Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile; Oberlin, Christine; Pereira, Elisabeth; Poupeau, Gérard & Tramoni, Pascal (2000): La fin du Pléistocène supérieur et le début de l'Holocène en Corse: apports paléontologique et archéologique du site de Castiglione (Oletta, Haute-Corse) [The end of the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene in Corsica: New paleontological and archaeological data from Castiglione deposit (Oletta, Haute-Corse)]. Quaternaire 11: 219-230. [French with English abstract] HTML abstract
A. chrysaetos

Binomial name
Aquila chrysaetos
Linnaeus, 1758

World distribution of the golden eagle
Light green = Nesting area
Blue = Wintering area

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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Chordata
Bateson, 1885

Typical Classes

See below

Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates.
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Aves
Linnaeus, 1758

Orders

About two dozen - see section below

Birds (class Aves) are bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate animals.
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Falconiformes
Sharpe, 1874

Families

Accipitridae
Pandionidae
Falconidae
Sagittariidae

The order Falconiformes is a group of about 290 species of birds that include the diurnal birds of prey.
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Accipitridae
Vieillot, 1816

Subfamilies
  • Accipitrinae
  • Aegypiinae
  • Buteoninae
  • Circaetinae
  • Circinae
  • Elaninae
  • Milvinae
  • Perninae
but see text

The Accipitridae
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Buteoninae

Genera

About 2 dozen, see article

Buteoninae is a bird of prey subfamily which consists of medium to large broad-winged species.
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species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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In scientific nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names used for a single taxon. Usage and terminology are different for zoology and botany.

Zoology

In zoological nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names that pertain to the same taxon, for example
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Johann Jakob Kaup (April 10, 1803 - July 4, 1873) was a German naturalist.

He was born at Darmstadt. After studying at Göttingen and Heidelberg he spent two years at Leiden, where his attention was specially devoted to the amphibians and fishes.
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genus (plural: genera) is part of the Latinized name for an organism. It is a name which reflects the classification of the organism by grouping it with other closely similar organisms.
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Buteo
Lacepede, 1799

Species

About 30, see text
Synonyms

Asturina

Buteo[1] is a genus of medium-sized wide-ranging raptors with a robust body and broad wings.
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Haliaeetus
Savigny, 1809

Species

Haliaeetus leucogaster
Haliaeetus sanfordi
Haliaeetus vocifer
Haliaeetus vociferoides
Haliaeetus leucoryphus
Haliaeetus albicilla

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Accipitridae
Vieillot, 1816

Subfamilies
  • Accipitrinae
  • Aegypiinae
  • Buteoninae
  • Circaetinae
  • Circinae
  • Elaninae
  • Milvinae
  • Perninae
but see text

The Accipitridae
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hawk refers to birds of prey in any of three senses:
  • In strict use in Europe and Asia, to mean any of the species in the bird subfamily Accipitrinae in the genera Accipiter, Micronisus, Melierax, Urotriorchis, and Megatriorchis.

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Eagles are large birds of prey which mainly inhabit Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species (the Bald and Golden Eagles) are found in North America north of Mexico, with a few more species in Central and South America, and three in Australia.
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    Accipitriformes
  • Pandionidae
  • Accipitridae
  • Sagittariidae
  • Falconiformes
  • Falconidae


A
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Vertebrata
Cuvier, 1812

Classes and Clades

See below
Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata (within the phylum Chordata), specifically, those chordates with backbones or spinal columns.
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"Hieraaetus" (see text)
Kaup, 1844

Species

See text

The genus Hieraaetus, sometimes known as hawk-eagles, denoted a group of smallish eagles usually placed in the Buteoninae subfamily of accipitrids.
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Lophaetus
Kaup, 1847

Species: L. occipitalis

Binomial name
Lophaetus occipitalis
(Daudin, 1800)

The Long-crested Eagle (
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African Black Eagle, see Verreaux's Eagle.

Black Eagle


Conservation status

Least Concern

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia
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extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point).
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Harpagornis

Species: H. moorei

Binomial name
Harpagornis moorei
Haast, 1872

Haast's Eagle (Harpagornis moorei
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In phylogenetics, a group of organisms is said to be paraphyletic (Greek para = near and phyle = race) if the group contains its most recent common ancestor, but does not contain all the descendants of that ancestor.
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A type species fixes the name of a genus (or of a taxon in a rank lower than genus).

Strictly speaking, a type species exists only in zoological nomenclature. As set in article 42.
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In scientific nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names used for a single taxon. Usage and terminology are different for zoology and botany.

Zoology

In zoological nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names that pertain to the same taxon, for example
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H. fasciata

Binomial name
Hieraaëtus fasciatus
(Vieillot, 1822)

Synonyms
  • Hieraaetus fasciatus


The Bonelli's Eagle (Hieraaëtus fasciatus
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A. pennata

Binomial name
Aquila pennata
(Gmelin, 1788)

Synonyms
  • Hieraaetus pennatus
The Booted Eagle (Aquila pennata) (formerly Hieraaetus pennatus
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A. morphnoides

Binomial name
Aquila morphnoides
(Gould, 1841)

Synonyms
  • Hieraaetus morphnoides
The Little Eagle (Aquila morphnoides
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