Elanus

Elanus
Black-shouldered kite (Elanus axillaris)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Accipitriformes
Family:	Accipitridae
Subfamily:	Elaninae
Genus:	Elanus Savigny, 1809
Type species
Elanus caesius [1] = Falco caeruleus Desfontaines 1789

Elanus is a genus of birds of prey in the elanine kite subfamily of the family Accipitridae. The four species in the genus are widely distributed.

Taxonomy

The genus Elanus was introduced in 1809 by the French zoologist Jules-César Savigny to accommodate a single species, Falco caeruleus, the black-winged kite, that had been described in 1789 by René Louiche Desfontaines. This is now the type species of the genus by monotypy. ^{[2] [3]} The name is from the Ancient Greek elanos for a "kite". ^[4]

Description

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]}

Image	Common Name	Scientific name [a]	Distribution
	Black-winged kite	Elanus caeruleus (Desfontaines, 1789)
	Black-shouldered kite	Elanus axillaris (Latham, 1801)
	White-tailed kite	Elanus leucurus (Vieillot, 1818)
	Letter-winged kite	Elanus scriptus Gould, 1842

Notes

1. A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Elanus.

References

1. "Accipitridae". aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
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. 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. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p.  144. ISBN   978-1-4081-2501-4.
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. 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. 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. Parkes, Kenneth C. (1958). "Specific relationships in the genus Elanus" (PDF). Condor . 60 (2): 139–40. doi:10.2307/1365270. JSTOR   1365270.
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. Bibcode:1992TWBu..104..571C.
10. Check-list of North American Birds (6th ed.). Lawrence, Kansas: American Ornithologists' Union. 1983. p.  103. ISBN   0-943610-32-X.
11. Ridgway, Robert (1900). A manual of North American Birds. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co. p. 222.

Other sources

• Ferguson-Lees, Christie, Franklin, Mead and Burton Raptors of the World ISBN   0-7136-8026-1