| Altai falcon | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Falconiformes |
| Family: | Falconidae |
| Genus: | Falco |
| Subgenus: | (Hierofalco) |
| Species: | F. cherrug x F. rusticolus hybrid? |
| Subspecies: | F. cherrug altaicus ? |
| Binomial name | |
| Falco cherrug altaicus ? (Menzbier MA, 1891) |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Hierofalco altaicus Menzbier, 1891 |
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The Altai falcon (Falco cherrug altaicus)(?) is a large falcon of questionable taxonomic position. It is often considered to be a subspecies of the Saker falcon (Falco cherrug).
It breeds in relatively small area in Central Asia across the Altai and Sayan Mountains. This area overlaps with the much larger breeding area of the Saker falcon (Falco cherrug). It appears that Altai falcons are either natural hybrids between Sakers and Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus), or rather the descendants of such rare hybrids back-crossing into the large population of Sakers. Current molecular genetic studies could not yet prove or falsify this hypothesis. Gyrfalcon is a rare winter vagrant in this area. The high altitude cold grasslands of this region is an intermediate habitat between the typical saker habitat (temperate lowland steppes) and the typical gyrfalcon habitat (arctic tundra). These two species of falcons also easily hybridize in captive breeds.
Thus the Altai falcon is tentatively considered to be a Saker subspecies Falco cherrug altaicus. It tends to be larger than typical Sakers and has red-backed, brownish and greyish colour varieties.
It used to have a high reputation among Central-Asian falconers. This is the reason why some speculate that the Hungarians' mythical turul might have been identical with the Altai falcon.