Black-backed hawk

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Black-backed hawk
Aegothelessavesi.jpg

Black- backed Swallow ( Aegotheles savesi )

Systematics
Order : Sailor birds (Apodiformes)
Family : Cave Dwarf (Aegothelidae)
Genre : Cave Dwarf ( Aegotheles )
Type : Black-backed hawk
Scientific name
Aegotheles savesi
Layard & Layard , 1881

The black- backed hawk ( Aegotheles savesi ) is an extremely rare species of bird in the cave swallow family . It is endemic to New Caledonia .

description

So far only the male specimen copy from 1880 has been described. It has a length of 28 centimeters. The entire plumage, including the wings and tail, is black with a tight gray-brown wave pattern. The wings are short and rounded. The tail is long and slightly rounded. The legs are long and strong. Several published illustrations of the species are based on the tree swallow and are therefore imprecise.

Habitat and way of life

Little is known about his way of life. The species inhabits probably the Melaleuca - savanna and moist forests. The sighting in 1998 was in an evergreen alluvial forest at an altitude of about 800 meters, where a single bird was seen hunting insects for about 30 seconds. The gastric contents of the holotype consisted of beetles.

status

The black-backed hawk was long thought to be lost. The prepared type specimen was discovered in 1880 in a bedroom in a house in Tonghoué. It is kept at the World Museum Liverpool and was the only known specimen for a long time until another specimen, acquired in 1915, was rediscovered in the Museo Civico di Zoologia in Rome , Italy in the 1990s . After unconfirmed reports about specimens from the island of Maré and the Tchamba Valley from the 1950s and about an allegedly shot specimen from the Païta region in 1960, it was found in November 1998 in the Riviere Ni Valley in the west of the Kouakoui massif in Province Sud rediscovered an individual in New Caledonia. Despite a subsequent four-month expedition, further evidence about the species was unsuccessful. The decline in the species is thought to be due to introduced rats and feral domestic cats.

literature

  • J. Del Hoyo, A. Elliot, J. Sargatal (Eds.): Handbook of the Birds of the World . Volume 5: Barn-Owls to Hummingbirds. Lynx Edicions, 1999, ISBN 84-87334-25-3 .
  • Erik Hirschfeld: The Rare Birds Yearbook 2008. MagDig Media, Shrewsbury 2007, ISBN 978-0-9552607-3-5 .
  • JMM Ekstrom, JPG Jones, J. Willis, J. Tobias, G. Dutson, N. Barré: New information on the distribution, status and conservation of terrestrial bird species in Grande Terre, New Caledonia. In: Emu. 102 (2), 2002, pp. 197-207. (PDF; 269 kB)

Web links