Black-and-white hawk-eagle

Description

This black-and-white raptor has a white head, neck, and body, with a small black crest on the crown and black coloring around the eyes, especially near the beak. Its wings are black with a distinct white leading edge, and the tail is brownish with blackish-gray barring and a white tip. Adults have orange irises, while juveniles have grayish ones. The feet vary from pale to bright yellow with black talons, and the beak is black with a yellow cere. Females are larger than males but otherwise identical. Young birds have pale edges on the upper wing coverts and some brownish-gray feathers on the back. The black-faced hawk is similar but much smaller, with a black tail that has a single bold white bar. Young ornate hawk-eagles also resemble this species but have lighter wings, back, and tail, and lack the black eye-ring.

Distribution and ecology

The species occurs from Oaxaca to Veracruz in southern Mexico through Central America, excluding most of El Salvador and the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. In South America, it is found on the Pacific side of the Andes south to Ecuador, along the Caribbean coast from northern Colombia and Venezuela to the Guianas, and south through eastern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina, then west to Beni and Santa Cruz in northeastern Bolivia.

A population exists in the Loreto Region of northeastern Peru, though its isolation from the main range is uncertain. It is absent from the western Amazon basin. Its natural habitats are lowland forests of any type, though very dense humid forests and savanna-like semiarid areas are not preferred. Habitat fragmentation is poorly tolerated; the species requires large stands of closed-canopy forest.

One individual was sighted at about 4,000 ft ASL in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and another at about 7,200 ft ASL in Ecuador's Tandayapa Valley. Its diet includes mammals, toads, squamates, and many birds, especially tree-living species such as oropendolas, aracaris, tanagers, and cotingas, but also ground- and waterbirds like tinamous, chachalacas, wood quails, cormorants, and the Brazilian merganser. It has been known to attack small monkeys and has preyed on a Rylands' bald-faced saki and opossums.

Taxonomy and systematics

This species is often placed in the monotypic genus Spizastur but has recently been moved to Spizaetus, as the ornate hawk-eagle appears to be its sister taxon. This has caused taxonomic confusion. Originally, Louis Pierre Vieillot described the black-chested buzzard-eagle as Spizaetus melanoleucus in 1819, while he had described the black-and-white hawk-eagle as Buteo melanoleucus in 1816. The former was later placed in Geranoaetus, and the latter moved to Spizastur.

The identical specific epithets did not conflict until recently. When the black-chested eagle-buzzard was treated in Buteo, the name Buteo melanoleucus was a senior homonym of the black-and-white hawk-eagle's original name, so the correct name for the black-chested eagle-buzzard in Buteo became Buteo fuscescens, reestablished briefly in the mid-20th century. Because the black-and-white hawk-eagle has not been placed in Buteo for a long time, Article 59.3 of the ICZN Code applies: a junior homonym replaced before 1961 is not permanently invalid if the substitute name is not in use, which has been the case after Amadon's 1963 revision.

Thus, Buteo melanoleucus can apply to the black-chested eagle-buzzard, while melanoleucus still applies to the black-and-white hawk-eagle in Spizaetus.