Phylogeny, Taxonomy, and Geographic Diversity of Diurnal Raptors: Falconiformes, Accipitriformes, and Cathartiformes

Falconiformes Locomotion

“…Clades within Falconiformes include families Falconidae (falcons, caracaras, Polihierax, and Neohierax) and Herpetotheridae (laughing falcon and forest falcons). Falconiformes are estimated to have been around for 60 million years, with extant genera ranging from 2 to 19 million years (Mindell et al 2018). The family has a cosmopolitan distribution with the exception of central Africa, and some parts of the Arctic and Antarctica.…”

Commentary: Defining Raptors and Birds of Prey

“…That said, most references listing species of diurnal raptors include Old and New World vultures (e.g., Brown and Amadon 1968, Brown 1976a, Ferguson-Lees and Christie 2001. Increasingly more researchers acknowledge that New World vultures should be recognized as their own order, Cathartiformes (Chesser et al 2016, Mindell et al 2018. This order is sister to Accipitriformes, and fossil calibrated phylogenetic analyses suggest that their common ancestor is as old or older than other recognized avian orders (Jarvis et al 2014, Prum et al 2015, Johnson et al 2016.…”

“…Indeed, the raptorial beak shape may be a function of a basal morphological state Figure 1. Phylogeny of core landbirds modified from Mindell et al (2018). The shaded box encompasses the raptorial grade (see text), within which we propose that all orders are considered raptors.…”

An evidence‐based assessment of the past distribution of Golden and White‐tailed Eagles across Wales

“…There are two eagles native to Britain, the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicillia). Both eagles belong, in scientific terms, to the Accipitridae family (Mindell, Fuchs, & Johnson, 2018), however, the two species are not closely related and belong to different Genera; Aquila (booted eagles) and Haliaeetus (sea eagles), and differ substantially in their behavior and ecology (Evans et al, 2010;Whitfield et al, 2013). In Wales, both the Golden Eagle (known in the Welsh language as Eryr Euriad) and the White-tailed Eagle (known in Welsh as Eryr y Môr) are currently regionally extinct.…”