Elanid kite

Elanid kites
Elanus caeruleus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Accipitriformes
Family: Accipitridae
Subfamily: Elaninae
Genera

Elanus
Chelictinia
Machaerhamphus
Gampsonyx
Elanoides

An elanid kite, sometimes white-tailed kite, is any of several small, long-winged, hovering raptors. All are specialist rodent hunters and most are members of the genus Elanus. Some authorities list the group as a formal subfamily, Elaninae. As a subfamily there are eight species in five genera with four of these genera being monotypic.

Elanid kites have a near-worldwide distribution, with three endemic species found in the Americas, two in Australia, one each in Africa and southern Asia, while the black-winged kite is found over a vast range from Europe and Africa in the west to Southeast Asia in the east.

Species

Taxonomy and systematics

In 1851 British zoologist Edward Blyth described Elaninae, the "smooth clawed kites", as a formal subfamily of Accipitridae.[note 2] However they are also grouped in Accipitrinae, the broader subfamily of hawks and eagles described by French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816.[3]

Vigors in 1824 had grouped Elanus and "true Milvus" together into Stirps Milvina, the kites. Earlier, the terms "kite" in English or "iktinos" in Greek referred only to the red or black (milvine) kites. He listed three known species: E. melanopterus, E. furcatus, and E. Riocourii.[note 3] But he noted that the latter two had more forked tails and probably didn't have nails that were rounded underneath.[4](pp333–334)

In 1931, Peters[5] used the subfamily Elaninae, listing its members as Elanus, Chelictinia, and Machaeramphus.[note 4] He placed Elanoïdes in subfamily Perninae,[note 5] and Gampsonyx with the forest falcons in Polyhieracinae. In the 1950s, several authors found Gampsonyx was related to Elanus rather than the falcons, based on morphological features and molt schedule.[6]

Lerner and Mindell describe the Elaninae as: "Kites noted for having a bony shelf above the eye, Elanus is cosmopolitan, Gampsonyx is restricted to the New World and Chelictinia is found in Africa". This is in contrast to the Perninae, which are: "Kites mainly found in the tropics and specializing on insects and bee or wasp larvae, all lack the bony eye shield found in the Elaninae".[7]

Comparisons of sequences for certain mitochondrial marker genes indicate that some elanid kites split early from the rest of the Accipitridae. Wink and Sauer-Gurth[8] found that Elanus was less related than the osprey and secretary bird (which are often placed in a separate family), but noted that this was not strongly indicated.[note 6] However, Lerner and Mindell[7] found that the osprey was less related, but Elanus leucurus was basal to the other Accipitridae.

Lerner and Mindell[7] also found that Elanoides forficatus grouped with Perninae, such as the type species Pernis apivorus and the Australian endemics Lophoictinia and Hamirostra.

Chelictinia, Machaerhamphus, and Gampsonyx were not included in these genetic sequencing studies.

Notes

  1. ↑ The choice between Westerman's name Machaerhamphus and Bonaparte's Macheiramphus has been problematic.[1][2] See bat hawk for further information.
  2. ↑ See "The Taxonomicon Taxon Tree: Elaninae". and choose classification by Brodkorb 1964 or Grzimek 1974.
  3. ↑ "F. melanopterus Daud." is probably a junior synonym for Falco caeruleus Desfontaines 1789. "F. furcurtus Linn." must be the swallow-tailed kite, which appears in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Falco forficatus.
  4. ↑ Peters gives the species and taxonomic authorities as follows: Elanus Savigny 1809 (7 subspecies in 4 species, see source for details); Chelictinia Lesson 1843 (monospecific, C. ricourii previously Elanoïdes ricourii Veillot 1822); and Machaeramphus Westerman 1848 (M. alcinus alcinus Westerman 1848 and M. a. anderssoni (= Stringonyx anderssoni Gurney 1865)).
  5. ↑ Elanoïdes Vieillot 1818, containing E. forficatus forficatus (=Falco forficatus Linné) and E. f. ytapa (=Milvus ytapa Veillot 1818)
  6. ↑ "Whether they share direct ancestry with the Accipitridae (as suggested by DNA-DNA hybridisation; Sibley & Ahlquist, 1990) cannot be settled with the current data set, since bootstrap values indicate a small support for these bifurcations."

References

  1. ↑ Brooke, R. K.; Clancey, P. A. (1981). "The Authorship of the Generic and Specific Names of the Bat Hawk". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 101 (4): 371–372. Retrieved 28 October 2014. text, PDF
  2. ↑ Peterson, Alan P. (2013). "Zoonomen Nomenclatural data". Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "The Taxonomicon". Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  4. ↑ Vigors, Nicholas Aylward (June 1824). "On the groups of the Falconidæ". Sketches in Ornithology. The Zoological Journal 1 (2): 308–346. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  5. ↑ Peters, James Lee (1931). "Elaninae". Check-list of birds of the world: volume 1. Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.: Harvard University Press. pp. 192–194.
  6. ↑ Baquero Palma, Fernando Hernandez (2011). "Species account: Pearl Kite Gampsonyx swainsonii". Global Raptor Information Network. Archived from the original on 2011-11-19. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 Lerner & Mindell 2005
  8. ↑ Wink & Sauer-Gurth 2004
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