Circaetus

Genus of birds

Circaetus

Short-toed snake eagle (Circaetus gallicus)
Scientific classification
Domain:  | Eukaryota
Kingdom:  | Animalia
Phylum:  | Chordata
Class:  | Aves
Order:  | Accipitriformes
Family:  | Accipitridae
Subfamily:  | Perninae
Genus:  | Circaetus
Vieillot, 1816
Type species
Falco gallicus

Gmelin, 1788

Circaetus, the snake eagles, is a genus of medium-sized eagles in the bird of prey family Accipitridae. They are mainly resident African species, but the migratory short-toed snake eagle breeds from the Mediterranean basin into Russia, the Middle East and India, and winters in sub-Saharan Africa and east to Indonesia.

Snake eagles are found in open habitats like cultivated plains arid savanna, but require trees in which to build a stick nest. The single egg is incubated mainly or entirely by the female.

Circaetus eagles have a rounded head and broad wings. They prey on reptiles, mainly snakes, but also take lizards and occasionally small mammals.

## Taxonomy and species[edit]

The genus Circaetus was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot to accommodate a single species, the short-toed snake eagle, which is therefore considered the type species.[1][2] The genus name is from the Ancient Greek kirkos, a type of hawk, and aetos, "eagle".[3] The genus contains six species.[4]

Image | Scientific name | Common Name | Distribution

|
|
|

| Circaetus gallicus | Short-toed snake eagle | the Mediterranean basin, into Russia and the Middle East, and parts of Asia
| Circaetus pectoralis \- sometimes included in C. gallicus | Black-chested snake eagle | southern Africa from Ethiopia and Sudan in the north to South Africa in the south and Angola in the southwest
| Circaetus beaudouini \- sometimes included in C. gallicus | Beaudouin's snake eagle | Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Gambia through southern Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger, northern Nigeria and Cameroon, southern Chad, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
| Circaetus cinereus | Brown snake eagle | West, East and southern Africa
| Circaetus fasciolatus | Southern banded snake eagle or fasciated snake eagle | eastern Sub-Saharan Africa.
| Circaetus cinerascens | Western banded snake eagle | Africa in the northern tropics from Senegal and Gambia east through to Ethiopia and then south to southern Angola and Zimbabwe

## Fossil record[edit]

Circaetus rhodopensis (late Miocene of Bulgaria)[5]

Circaetus haemusensis (early Pleistocene of Bulgaria)[6]

## References[edit]

1. ^ Vieillot, Louis Jean Pierre (1816). Analyse d'une Nouvelle Ornithologie Élémentaire (in French). Paris: Deterville/self. p. 23.
2. ^ Mayr, Ernst; Cottrell, G. William, eds. (1979). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 309.
3. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 108. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
4. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Hoatzin, New World vultures, Secretarybird, raptors". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
5. ^ Boev, Z. 2012. Circaetus rhodopensis sp. n. (Aves, Accipitriformes) from the Late Miocene of Hadzhidimovo (SW Bulgaria). - Acta zoologica bulgarica, 64 (1): 5-12.
6. ^ Boev, Z. 2015. An Early Pleistocene Snake-eagle (Circaetus haemusensis sp. n. - Aves, Accipitriformes) from Varshets (NW Bulgaria). – Acta zoologica bulgarica. 67 (1), 2015: 127-138.

Taxon identifiers|

* Wikidata: Q867544
* Wikispecies: Circaetus
* BOLD: 4448
* CoL: 62LC9
* Fauna Europaea: 96707
* Fauna Europaea (new): e4b08a37-dfd9-4794-b3bd-a4a5b3a51dec
* GBIF: 2480661
* iNaturalist: 5239
* IRMNG: 1365141
* ITIS: 175498
* NBN: NHMSYS0000530290
* NCBI: 43464
* Plazi: F46735AA-CAC3-6D9F-0466-F5E1FBB9A7AB
* WoRMS: 1451667
* ZooBank: 48267490-E2E0-41BB-A549-E2DAD6DF73CE

|