Crested serpent eagle explained

The crested serpent eagle (Spilornis cheela) is a medium-sized bird of prey that is found in forested habitats across tropical Asia. Within its widespread range across the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and East Asia, there are considerable variations and some authorities prefer to treat several of its subspecies as completely separate species.[1] In the past, several species including the Philippine serpent eagle (S. holospila), Andaman serpent eagle (S. elgini) and South Nicobar serpent eagle (S. klossi) were treated as subspecies of the Crested serpent eagle. All members within the species complex have a large looking head with long feathers on the back of the head giving them a maned and crested appearance. The face is bare and yellow joining up with the ceres while the powerful feet are unfeathered and heavily scaled. They fly over the forest canopy on broad wings and tail have wide white and black bars. They call often with a loud, piercing and familiar three or two-note call. They often feed on snakes, giving them their name and are placed along with the Circaetus snake-eagles in the subfamily Circaetinae.

Description

This medium-large, dark brown eagle is stocky, with rounded wings and a short tail. Its short black and white fan-shaped nuchal crest gives it a thick-necked appearance. The bare facial skin and feet are yellow. The underside is spotted with white and yellowish-brown. When perched the wing tips do not reach until the tail tip. In soaring flight, the broad and paddle-shaped wings are held in a shallow V. The tail and underside of the flight feathers are black with broad white bars. Young birds show a lot of white on the head.[2] [3] The tarsus is unfeathered and covered by hexagonal scales. The upper mandible does not have an overhanging festoon to the tip.[4]

Size

This species of serpent eagle manifests an unusual amount of size variation across its assorted subspecies. Total length of fully-grown crested serpent eagles can vary from and wingspan can vary from .[5] [6] [7] The largest proportioned race appears to be the nominate, S. c. cheela, with a wing chord of in males and in females, tail lengths of and tarsus length of . In comparison, S. c. minimus, probably the smallest race, has a wing chord of in males and in females, tail lengths of around and tarsal length of around .[7] Weights are more fitfully reported but are estimated to vary perhaps threefold between assorted races.[7] [8] In very small subspecies such as S. c. asturinus body masses were found to be in a male and in a female.[7] In S. c. palawanesis, body mass was reported at in males and in females.[9] Serpent eagles from Borneo, S. c. pallidus, may between .[7] [10] Mainland forms are typically larger but a weight of was cited for the fairly small mainland race, S. c. burmanicus.[11] In the race S. c. hoya, weights were much higher, averaging ; meanwhile, in the same race, 8 males averaged and 6 females averaged .[12] [13] In some cases, serpent eagles may attain estimated weights of approximately .[14]

Taxonomy

The crested serpent eagle is placed along with the snake eagles of the genus Circaetus in the subfamily Circaetinae.[15]

The nominate subspecies has a black throat while the peninsular Indian form has a brownish throat. There are clinal latitudinal variations, with size decreasing southward.[2] The small islands taxa are generally smaller in size than the taxa from the Asian mainland/larger islands in a phenomenon termed as insular dwarfism.[1] Within its widespread range across tropical Asia, 21 subspecies have been proposed:[1]

The remaining sub-species are all restricted to smaller islands:

The last seven (with English names in brackets) are sometimes treated as separate species.[1] Although the crested serpent eagle remains widespread and fairly common overall, some of the taxa that are restricted to small islands are believed to have relatively small populations that likely are in the hundreds.[1]

The rarest is probably the Bawean serpent eagle with a declining population of about 26–37 pairs, which makes it critically endangered.[16] [17] [18] [19]

Behaviour and ecology

The crested serpent eagle is a reptile eater which hunts over forests, often close to wet grassland,[20] for snakes and lizards. It has also been observed to prey on birds, amphibians, mammals, fishes, termites and large earthworms.[21] It is found mainly over areas with thick vegetation both on the low hills and the plains. This species is a resident species, but in some parts of their range they are found only in summer.[2] [22]

The call is a distinctive Kluee-wip-wip with the first note being high and rising. They call a lot in the late mornings from their perches where they spend a lot of time and they rise on thermals in the mornings.[2] In southern Taiwan, males have a larger home range than females. Males on average had a home range of 16.7 km2 while females used about 7 km2.[23] When alarmed, they erect the crest and the head appears large and framed by the ruff.[4] They will sometimes follow snakes on the ground. They roost in the interiors of trees with dense foliage.[24] A radio-telemetric study of the species in Taiwan found that the birds spend 98% of the day perched and usually finding food in the morning hours. They appear to use a sit and wait foraging strategy.[25]

The breeding season begins in late winter when they start courting and establishing territories. The eggs are laid in early summer. Old nests are often refurbished and reused in India but a study in Penang found them to build fresh nests each year. A study in India found that most nests were built along riverine trees. The nest is a large platform built high on a tree. Both birds in a pair build the nest but the female alone incubates. The male guards when the female forages. In central India, the Terminalia tomentosa is often used while Terminalia bellirica and Dalbergia latifolia was often used in southern India.[26] In Penang, the nest trees were typically large and isolated from other trees with lot of room for the birds to fly in and out. The nests are lined with green leaves collected from nearby and are placed facing down on the nest floor.[27] The usual clutch is one egg but two are sometimes laid and only a single chick is successfully raised in a season. When eggs are lost, a replacement is laid two to seven weeks later. The eggs hatch after about 41 days and the young fledge after about two months. Nests are defended by the parents.[4] [28] [29] [30]

Several species of endoparasitic nematodes have been recovered from the intestines of crested serpent eagles, including Madelinema angelae.[31] [32] Avian pox virus infections which cause warts on the face have been observed in a wild bird living in Taiwan.[33] A number of ectoparasitic bird lice have been described from the species including Kurodaia cheelae.[34] In Penang, it was found that cinereous tits (Parus cinereus ambiguus) tended to nest close to nesting crested serpent eagles, presumably due to safety from predators like crows that may be driven off by the eagles. They have also been found to visit the nests of the eagles to collect fur from the remains of dead mammal prey.[35]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Ferguson-Lees, James & Christie, David A. (2001). Raptors of the World. Christopher Helm, London.
  2. Book: Rasmussen, P.C. . Anderton, J.C. . 2005 . Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide . 2 . Smithsonian Institution & Lynx Edicions . 92–93.
  3. Book: The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Birds. Volume 3. 357–360. Blanford, W.T. . 1895. Taylor and Francis. London.
  4. Book: Ali, S. . Ripley, S.D. . Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan . 1 . Second . Oxford University Press . New Delhi. 1978. 329–334.
  5. Clark, W.S., J. S. Marks, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Crested Serpent-Eagle (Spilornis cheela), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
  6. Grewal, B., Pfister, O., & Harvey, B. (2002). A Photographic Guide to the Birds of India: And the Indian Subcontinent, Including Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka & the Maldives. Princeton University Press.
  7. Book: Ferguson-Lees . J. . Christie . D. . 2001 . Raptors of the World . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt . 0-618-12762-3.
  8. Book: CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses . 2nd . John B. Jr. . Dunning . CRC Press . 2008 . 978-1-4200-6444-5.
  9. Gamauf, A., Preleuthner, M., & Winkler, H. (1998). Philippine birds of prey: interrelations among habitat, morphology, and behavior. The Auk, 115(3), 713-726.
  10. Artuti, A. K., Sari, M., Retnaningtyas, R. W., & Listyorini, D. (2020, November). A phylogenetic analysis of Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela) based on cytochrome-c oxydase subunit I (COI): a stepping stone towards genetic conservation of raptors in Indonesia. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 590, No. 1, p. 012008). IOP Publishing.
  11. Brown, L. & Amadon, D. (1986) Eagles, Hawks and Falcons of the World. The Wellfleet Press. .
  12. Tsai, P. Y., Ko, C. J., Hsieh, C., Su, Y. T., Lu, Y. J., Lin, R. S., & Tuanmu, M. N. (2020). A trait dataset for Taiwan's breeding birds. Biodiversity data journal, 8.
  13. Chou, T. C., Walther, B. A., & Lee, P. F. (2012). Spacing pattern of the Crested Serpent-eagle (spilornis cheela hoya) in Southern Taiwan. Taiwania, 57(1), 1-13.
  14. Unwin, M., & Tipling, D. (2018). The Empire of the Eagle: An Illustrated Natural History. Yale University Press.
  15. 10.1016/j.ympev.2005.04.010 . Phylogeny of eagles, Old World vultures, and other Accipitridae based on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. 2005. Lerner. H.R.L. . Mindell. D.P. . Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution . 37. 2. 327–46. 15925523.
  16. Nijman, V.. 2006. The endemic Bawean Serpent-eagle Spilornis baweanus: habitat use, abundance and conservation . Bird Conservation International . 16 . 2 . 131–143 . 10.1017/S0959270906000219. free.
  17. Book: Check-List of Birds of the World. Volume 1. Second . Mayr, E. . Cottrell, G.W. . 1979. Museum of Comparative Zoology. Cambridge, Massachusetts . 311–315 .
  18. Oberholser, H.C. . The birds of the Natuna Islands. Bulletin of the United States National Museum. 159. 18–21 . 1923 .
  19. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 38. 1918 . 245 . Sclater, W.L. . 37–41. Descriptions of new hawks.
  20. Ueta, M. . Minton, J.S. . 1996. Journal of Raptor Research . 30 . 2 . 99–100 . Habitat preference of Crested Serpent Eagles in Southern Japan .
  21. Web site: Crested Serpent-Eagle | the Peregrine Fund .
  22. Attempt by the crested Serpent Eagle Spilornis cheela to seize the Indian cobra Naja naja . Purandare, K. . Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society . 2002. 99. 2 . 299 .
  23. Spacing Pattern of the Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela hoya) in Southern Taiwan . Chou, T. . Walther, B.A. . Pei-Fen Lee . Taiwania . 57 . 1 . 1–13 . 2012 . 2013-02-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20131203001812/http://tai2.ntu.edu.tw/taiwania/pdf/tai.2012.57.1.1.pdf. 2013-12-03. dead.
  24. Baker, E.C.S. . Some notes on tame Serpent Eagles. 154–159 . The Avicultural Magazine. 5. 5. 1914 .
  25. Diurnal activity pattern of Crested Serpent Eagles Spilornis cheela hoya in Kenting, southern Taiwan . Chia-hong, L. . 2010 . Graduate Institute of Environment and Ecology . Taiwan . Chinese . dead . 2012-04-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120402110118/http://140.133.6.46/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0124111-145536.
  26. Taprobanica . 2012. 4. 2. 77–82. Breeding ecology of the crested serpent eagle Spilornis cheela (Latham, 1790) (Aves: Accipitriformes: Accipitridae) in Kolli Hills, Tamil Nadu, India . 10.4038/tapro.v4i2.5059 . Gokula. V. . free.
  27. Naoroji, R. K. . Monga, S.G. . 1983. Observations on the Crested Serpent Eagle (Spilornis cheela) in Rajpipla forests – South Gujarat . Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society . 80 . 2 . 273–285 .
  28. Daly, W. M. . 1895 . The southern Indian harrier eagle . Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society . 9 . 4 . 487 .
  29. Osman, S.M. . 1972 . The Crested Serpent Eagle . Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society . 69 . 3 . 461–468 .
  30. Book: The nests and eggs of Indian birds. Volume 3. Hume, A.O. . 1890 . R.H. Porter . London . 152–154.
  31. Nematode Parasites of Oceanica. XI. Madelinema angelae gen. et sp. n., and Inglisonema mawsonae sp. n. (Heterakoidea: Inglisonematidae) from birds . Schmidt, G.D. . Kuntz, R.E. . Journal of Parasitology . 57 . 3 . 1971 . 479–484 . 10.2307/3277897. 5104559 . 3277897.
  32. Yoshino, T. . Shingake, T. . Onuma, M. . Kinjo, T. . Yanai, T. . Fukushi, H. . Kuwana, T. . Asakawa, M. . 2010. Parasitic helminths and arthropods of the Crested Serpent Eagle Spilornis cheela perplexus Swann, 1922 from the Yaeyama . Journal of the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology. 41. 1. 55–61 . 10.3312/jyio.41.55 . free.
  33. Avian Dis. . 2011. 55. 1. 143–146. Avian pox infection in a free-living crested serpent eagle (Spilornis cheela) in southern Taiwan . Chen C.C., Pei, K.J., Lee, F.R., Tzeng, M.P., Chang, T.C. . 10.1637/9510-082610-Case.1 . 21500652. 956795.
  34. The Genus Kurodaia (Mallophaga: Menoponidae) from the Falconiformes, with Elevation of the Subgenus Falcomenopon to Generic Rank . Price, R.D. . Beer, J.R. . Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 56. 3. 1963 . 379–385 . 10.1093/aesa/56.3.379.
  35. The serpent eagles Spilornis cheela of Penang Island, Malaya. Cairns, J. . 1968. Ibis . 110 . 4. 569–571. 10.1111/j.1474-919X.1968.tb00064.x.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Crested serpent eagle".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.