79-455: Leucopternis albicollis The white hawk ( Pseudastur albicollis ) is a bird of prey breeding in the tropical New World of the family Accipitridae . Though it is commonly placed in the subfamily Buteoninae , the validity of this group is doubtful and currently under review. The adult white hawk ranges from 46–56 cm (18–22 in) long with very broad wings and has a white head, body and underwings. The upper wings are black, and
158-593: A crown group of ray-finned fish that can protrude their jaws . The tetrapods , a mostly terrestrial clade of vertebrates that have dominated the top trophic levels in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems since the Late Paleozoic , evolved from lobe-finned fish during the Carboniferous , developing air-breathing lungs homologous to swim bladders. Despite the cladistic lineage, tetrapods are usually not considered to be fish, making "fish"
237-672: A lammergeier might have killed Aeschylus by accident. Many stories of Brazilian indigenous peoples speak about children mauled by Uiruuetê, the Harpy Eagle in Tupi language . Various large raptors like golden eagles are reported attacking human beings, but its unclear if they intend to eat them or if they have ever been successful in killing one. Some fossil evidence indicates large birds of prey occasionally preyed on prehistoric hominids. The Taung Child , an early human found in Africa,
316-579: A paraphyletic group and for this reason, the class Pisces seen in older reference works is no longer used in formal classifications. Traditional classification divides fish into three extant classes (Agnatha, Chondrichthyes, and Osteichthyes), and with extinct forms sometimes classified within those groups, sometimes as their own classes. Fish account for more than half of vertebrate species. As of 2016, there are over 32,000 described species of bony fish, over 1,100 species of cartilaginous fish, and over 100 hagfish and lampreys. A third of these fall within
395-426: A paraphyletic group. Fish have been an important natural resource for humans since prehistoric times, especially as food . Commercial and subsistence fishers harvest fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in breeding cages in the ocean. Fish are caught for recreation , or raised by fishkeepers as ornaments for private and public exhibition in aquaria and garden ponds . Fish have had
474-454: A distance or during flight, strong feet with sharp talons for grasping or killing prey, and powerful, curved beaks for tearing off flesh. Although predatory birds primarily hunt live prey, many species (such as fish eagles , vultures and condors ) also scavenge and eat carrion . Although the term "bird of prey" could theoretically be taken to include all birds that actively hunt and eat other animals, ornithologists typically use
553-552: A fish-like body shape through convergent evolution . Fishes of the World comments that "it is increasingly widely accepted that tetrapods, including ourselves, are simply modified bony fishes, and so we are comfortable with using the taxon Osteichthyes as a clade, which now includes all tetrapods". The biodiversity of extant fish is unevenly distributed among the various groups; teleosts , bony fishes able to protrude their jaws , make up 96% of fish species. The cladogram shows
632-467: A great deal of data is required. Dimorphisms can also be the product of intrasexual selection between males and females. It appears that both sexes of the species play a role in the sexual dimorphism within raptors; females tend to compete with other females to find good places to nest and attract males, and males competing with other males for adequate hunting ground so they appear as the most healthy mate. It has also been proposed that sexual dimorphism
711-427: A hard skull , but lacking limbs with digits . Fish can be grouped into the more basal jawless fish and the more common jawed fish , the latter including all living cartilaginous and bony fish , as well as the extinct placoderms and acanthodians . Most fish are cold-blooded , their body temperature varying with the surrounding water, though some large active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold
790-613: A higher core temperature . Many fish can communicate acoustically with each other, such as during courtship displays . The earliest fish appeared during the Cambrian as small filter feeders ; they continued to evolve through the Paleozoic , diversifying into many forms. The earliest fish with dedicated respiratory gills and paired fins , the ostracoderms , had heavy bony plates that served as protective exoskeletons against invertebrate predators . The first fish with jaws ,
869-465: A larger image to be projected onto the retina. The visual acuity of some large raptors such as eagles and Old World vultures are the highest known among vertebrates; the wedge-tailed eagle has twice the visual acuity of a typical human and six times that of the common ostrich , the vertebrate with the largest eyes. There are two regions in the retina, called the deep and shallow fovea, that are specialized for acute vision. These regions contain
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#1732786620324948-436: A more spherical lens . Their retinas generally have both rods and cones (for scotopic and photopic vision ); many species have colour vision , often with three types of cone. Teleosts can see polarized light ; some such as cyprinids have a fourth type of cone that detects ultraviolet . Amongst jawless fish , the lamprey has well-developed eyes, while the hagfish has only primitive eyespots. Hearing too
1027-419: A protective bony cover or operculum . They are able to oxygenate their gills using muscles in the head. Some 400 species of fish in 50 families can breathe air, enabling them to live in oxygen-poor water or to emerge on to land. The ability of fish to do this is potentially limited by their single-loop circulation, as oxygenated blood from their air-breathing organ will mix with deoxygenated blood returning to
1106-582: A role in human culture through the ages, serving as deities , religious symbols, and as the subjects of art, books and movies. The word fish is inherited from Proto-Germanic , and is related to German Fisch , the Latin piscis and Old Irish īasc , though the exact root is unknown; some authorities reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European root * peysk- , attested only in Italic , Celtic , and Germanic . About 530 million years ago during
1185-441: A sense of touch and of hearing . Blind cave fish navigate almost entirely through the sensations from their lateral line system. Some fish, such as catfish and sharks, have the ampullae of Lorenzini , electroreceptors that detect weak electric currents on the order of millivolt. Vision is an important sensory system in fish. Fish eyes are similar to those of terrestrial vertebrates like birds and mammals, but have
1264-455: A sortie from a perch. Researchers have documented the white hawk feeding on a number of bird species including the keel-billed toucan , the mottled owl , the white-breasted wood wren and the great tinamou . They may feed on young and weak birds, as well. Though rare, there is some evidence that this hawk may occasionally feed on fish . One researcher in Suriname found remains of a fish in
1343-485: A synonym. In his Genera of Birds , Gray treats them both as Buteo s, listing B. albicollis in the main text and B. pæcilonotus in the index. Peters ' influential 1931 checklist placed the white hawk in Kaup's genus Leucopternis , listing five subspecies: L. albicollis albicollis , L. a. ghiesbrechti , L. a. costaricensis , L. a. occidentalis , and L. a. polionota . During the 20th century, some authors treated
1422-485: A tail fin, jaws, skin covered with scales , and lays eggs. Each criterion has exceptions, creating a wide diversity in body shape and way of life. For example, some fast-swimming fish are warm-blooded, while some slow-swimming fish have abandoned streamlining in favour of other body shapes. Fish species are roughly divided equally between freshwater and marine (oceanic) ecosystems; there are some 15,200 freshwater species and around 14,800 marine species. Coral reefs in
1501-589: A true "land fish" as this worm-like catfish strictly lives among waterlogged leaf litter . Cavefish of multiple families live in underground lakes , underground rivers or aquifers . Like other animals, fish suffer from parasitism . Some species use cleaner fish to remove external parasites. The best known of these are the bluestreak cleaner wrasses of coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific oceans. These small fish maintain cleaning stations where other fish congregate and perform specific movements to attract
1580-422: A typical fish is adapted for efficient swimming by alternately contracting paired sets of muscles on either side of the backbone. These contractions form S-shaped curves that move down the body. As each curve reaches the tail fin, force is applied to the water, moving the fish forward. The other fins act as control surfaces like an aircraft's flaps, enabling the fish to steer in any direction. Since body tissue
1659-822: A white hawk's stomach. It associates with foraging groups of tufted capuchin monkeys ( Cebus apella ) and South American coatis ( Nasua nasua ) to snatch prey startled by these animals. This species is often seen soaring, and has a spectacular aerial courtship display. It builds a large stick platform nest in a tree and usually lays one dark-blotched blue-white egg . An attended nest was observed in Ecuador in mid-August. Bird of prey Birds of prey or predatory birds , also known as raptors , are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals , reptiles and other smaller birds). In addition to speed and strength, these predators have keen eyesight for detecting prey from
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#17327866203241738-600: Is a deprecated superorder within Raptores, formerly composed of the orders Falconiformes and Strigiformes. The clade was invalidated after 2012. Falconiformes is now placed in Eufalconimorphae , while Strigiformes is placed in Afroaves . The order Accipitriformes is believed to have originated 44 million years ago when it split from the common ancestor of the secretarybird ( Sagittarius serpentarius ) and
1817-729: Is a simplified phylogeny of Telluraves which is the clade where the birds of prey belong to along with passerines and several near-passerine lineages. The orders in bold text are birds of prey orders; this is to show the paraphyly of the group as well as their relationships to other birds. Accipitriformes (hawks, vultures, and relatives) [REDACTED] Strigiformes (owls) [REDACTED] Coraciimorphae (woodpeckers, rollers, hornbills, etc.) [REDACTED] Cariamiformes (seriemas) [REDACTED] Falconiformes (falcons) [REDACTED] Psittacopasserae (parrots and songbirds) [REDACTED] A recent phylogenomic study from Wu et al. (2024) has found an alternative phylogeny for
1896-465: Is an important sensory system in fish. Fish sense sound using their lateral lines and otoliths in their ears, inside their heads. Some can detect sound through the swim bladder. Some fish, including salmon, are capable of magnetoreception ; when the axis of a magnetic field is changed around a circular tank of young fish, they reorient themselves in line with the field. The mechanism of fish magnetoreception remains unknown; experiments in birds imply
1975-492: Is an order of telluravian birds consisting of the living seriemas and extinct terror birds . Jarvis et al. 2014 suggested including them in the category of birds of prey, and McClure et al. 2019 considered seriemas to be birds of prey. The Peregrine Fund also considers seriemas to be birds of prey. Like most birds of prey, seriemas and terror birds prey on vertebrates . However, seriemas were not traditionally considered birds of prey. There were traditionally classified in
2054-549: Is believed to have been killed by an eagle-like bird similar to the crowned eagle . The Haast's eagle may have preyed on early humans in New Zealand , and this conclusion would be consistent with Maori folklore . Leptoptilos robustus might have preyed on both Homo floresiensis and anatomically modern humans, and the Malagasy crowned eagle , teratorns , Woodward's eagle and Caracara major are similar in size to
2133-445: Is commonly believed that the dimorphisms found in raptors occur due to sexual selection or environmental factors. In general, hypotheses in favor of ecological factors being the cause for sexual dimorphism in raptors are rejected. This is because the ecological model is less parsimonious , meaning that its explanation is more complex than that of the sexual selection model. Additionally, ecological models are much harder to test because
2212-431: Is denser than water, fish must compensate for the difference or they will sink. Many bony fish have an internal organ called a swim bladder that allows them to adjust their buoyancy by increasing or decreasing the amount of gas it contains. The scales of fish provide protection from predators at the cost of adding stiffness and weight. Fish scales are often highly reflective; this silvering provides camouflage in
2291-516: Is derived from the Latin word rapio , meaning "to seize or take by force". The common names for various birds of prey are based on structure, but many of the traditional names do not reflect the evolutionary relationships between the groups. Many of these English language group names originally referred to particular species encountered in Britain . As English-speaking people travelled further,
2370-411: Is merely the product of disruptive selection , and is merely a stepping stone in the process of speciation, especially if the traits that define gender are independent across a species. Sexual dimorphism can be viewed as something that can accelerate the rate of speciation. In non-predatory birds, males are typically larger than females. However, in birds of prey, the opposite is the case. For instance,
2449-465: Is the biggest part of the brain; it is small in hagfish and lampreys , but very large in mormyrids , processing their electrical sense . The brain stem or myelencephalon controls some muscles and body organs, and governs respiration and osmoregulation . The lateral line system is a network of sensors in the skin which detects gentle currents and vibrations, and senses the motion of nearby fish, whether predators or prey. This can be considered both
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2528-754: The Andes on the west to the Guianas on the Atlantic on the northeast, and to the transition lands to the south. A widespread species, it is usually not common, but the IUCN considers it not to be globally threatened due to the large extent of its range. The white hawk feeds mainly on reptiles (such as lizards and snakes , including the eastern coral snake ) with some insects (such as beetles and grasshoppers ), crabs , amphibians and mammals (including rats , squirrels , small opossums and bats ), caught in
2607-541: The Cambrian explosion , fishlike animals with a notochord and eyes at the front of the body, such as Haikouichthys , appear in the fossil record . During the late Cambrian , other jawless forms such as conodonts appear. Jawed vertebrates appear in the Silurian , with giant armoured placoderms such as Dunkleosteus . Jawed fish, too, appeared during the Silurian: the cartilaginous Chondrichthyes and
2686-723: The Indo-Pacific constitute the center of diversity for marine fishes, whereas continental freshwater fishes are most diverse in large river basins of tropical rainforests , especially the Amazon , Congo , and Mekong basins. More than 5,600 fish species inhabit Neotropical freshwaters alone, such that Neotropical fishes represent about 10% of all vertebrate species on the Earth. Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams (e.g., char and gudgeon ) to
2765-477: The abyssal and even hadal depths of the deepest oceans (e.g., cusk-eels and snailfish ), although none have been found in the deepest 25% of the ocean. The deepest living fish in the ocean so far found is a cusk-eel, Abyssobrotula galatheae , recorded at the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench at 8,370 m (27,460 ft). In terms of temperature, Jonah's icefish live in cold waters of
2844-1206: The evolutionary relationships of all groups of living fishes (with their respective diversity ) and the tetrapods. Extinct groups are marked with a dagger (†); groups of uncertain placement are labelled with a question mark (?) and dashed lines (- - - - -). Jawless fishes (118 species: hagfish , lampreys ) [REDACTED] † Thelodonti , † Conodonta , † Anaspida [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] † Galeaspida [REDACTED] † Osteostraci [REDACTED] † Placodermi [REDACTED] † Acanthodii [REDACTED] (>1,100 species: sharks , rays , chimaeras ) [REDACTED] (2 species: coelacanths ) [REDACTED] Dipnoi (6 species: lungfish ) [REDACTED] Tetrapoda (>38,000 species, not considered fish: amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) [REDACTED] (14 species: bichirs , reedfish ) [REDACTED] (27 species: sturgeons , paddlefish ) [REDACTED] Ginglymodi (7 species: gars , alligator gars ) [REDACTED] Halecomorphi (2 species: bowfin , eyetail bowfin ) [REDACTED] (>32,000 species) [REDACTED] Fishes (without tetrapods) are
2923-500: The grey-backed hawk occidentalis as a subspecies of L. albicollis , whilst others recognized it as a separate species. In the first decade of the 2000s Leucopternis was found to be polyphyletic, and in 2012 the American Ornithologists' Union separated the white hawk and its relatives under the old name Pseudaster . DNA analysis found that the subspecies P. a. albicollis is sister to P. a. polionotus , and
3002-400: The intertidal zone , are facultative air breathers, able to breathe air when out of water, as may occur daily at low tide , and to use their gills when in water. Some coastal fish like rockskippers and mudskippers choose to leave the water to feed in habitats temporarily exposed to the air. Some catfish absorb air through their digestive tracts. The digestive system consists of a tube,
3081-497: The kestrel is a type of falcon in which males are the primary providers, and the females are responsible for nurturing the young. In this species, the smaller the kestrels are, the less food is needed and thus, they can survive in environments that are harsher. This is particularly true in the male kestrels. It has become more energetically favorable for male kestrels to remain smaller than their female counterparts because smaller males have an agility advantage when it comes to defending
3160-641: The merlin ( Falco columbarius ). The taxonomy of Carl Linnaeus grouped birds (class Aves) into orders, genera, and species, with no formal ranks between genus and order. He placed all birds of prey into a single order, Accipitres , subdividing this into four genera: Vultur (vultures), Falco (eagles, hawks, falcons, etc.), Strix (owls), and Lanius (shrikes). This approach was followed by subsequent authors such as Gmelin , Latham and Turton . Louis Pierre Vieillot used additional ranks: order, tribe, family, genus, species. Birds of prey (order Accipitres) were divided into diurnal and nocturnal tribes;
3239-425: The stout infantfish . Swimming performance varies from fish such as tuna, salmon , and jacks that can cover 10–20 body-lengths per second to species such as eels and rays that swim no more than 0.5 body-lengths per second. A typical fish is cold-blooded , has a streamlined body for rapid swimming, extracts oxygen from water using gills, has two sets of paired fins, one or two dorsal fins, an anal fin and
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3318-475: The Haast's eagle, implying that they similarly could pose a threat to a human being. Birds of prey have incredible vision and rely heavily on it for a number of tasks. They utilize their high visual acuity to obtain food, navigate their surroundings, distinguish and flee from predators, mating, nest construction, and much more. They accomplish these tasks with a large eye in relation to their skull, which allows for
3397-601: The Southern Ocean, including under the Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf at a latitude of 79°S, while desert pupfish live in desert springs, streams, and marshes, sometimes highly saline, with water temperatures as high as 36 C. A few fish live mostly on land or lay their eggs on land near water. Mudskippers feed and interact with one another on mudflats and go underwater to hide in their burrows. A single undescribed species of Phreatobius has been called
3476-489: The accipitrid species. The phylogeny of Accipitriformes is complex and difficult to unravel. Widespread paraphylies were observed in many phylogenetic studies. More recent and detailed studies show similar results. However, according to the findings of a 2014 study, the sister relationship between larger clades of Accipitriformes was well supported (e.g. relationship of Harpagus kites to buzzards and sea eagles and these latter two with Accipiter hawks are sister taxa of
3555-556: The attention of the cleaners. Cleaning behaviors have been observed in a number of fish groups, including an interesting case between two cichlids of the same genus, Etroplus maculatus , the cleaner, and the much larger E. suratensis . Fish occupy many trophic levels in freshwater and marine food webs . Fish at the higher levels are predatory , and a substantial part of their prey consists of other fish. In addition, mammals such as dolphins and seals feed on fish, alongside birds such as gannets and cormorants . The body of
3634-697: The bills of birds of prey shown by hunters. In Britain, kites and buzzards were seen as destroyers of game and killed, for instance in 1684–5 alone as many as 100 kites were killed. Rewards for their killing were also in force in the Netherlands from 1756. From 1705 to 1800, it has been estimated that 624087 birds of prey were killed in a part of Germany that included Hannover, Luneburg, Lauenburg and Bremen with 14125 claws deposited just in 1796–97. Many species also develop lead poisoning after accidental consumption of lead shot when feeding on animals that had been shot by hunters. Lead pellets from direct shooting that
3713-531: The biogeographic realms of the Southern Hemisphere. The appearance of migratory behaviour occurred in the tropics parallel with the range expansion of migratory species to temperate habitats. Similar results of southern origin in other taxonomic groups can be found in the literature. Distribution and biogeographic history highly determine the origin of migration in birds of prey. Based on some comparative analyses, diet breadth also has an effect on
3792-520: The birds discovered in 2000/2001 in the Serranía de las Quinchas of central Colombia is unclear. The white hawk was described by John Latham : in English (1787) as the "white-necked falcon", and in Latin (1790) as Falco albicollis , with locality "Cayenne". Around 1850, Edward Blyth created the genus Pseudaster , with " Falco pæcilonotus Cuvier" as the type and " F.skotopterus Pr. Max." as
3871-586: The birds have escaped from also cause reduced fitness and premature deaths. Some evidence supports the contention that the African crowned eagle occasionally views human children as prey, with a witness account of one attack (in which the victim, a seven-year-old boy, survived and the eagle was killed), and the discovery of part of a human child skull in a nest. This would make it the only living bird known to prey on humans, although other birds such as ostriches and cassowaries have killed humans in self-defense and
3950-550: The body, and produce a concentrated urine. The reverse happens in freshwater fish : they tend to gain water osmotically, and produce a dilute urine. Some fish have kidneys able to operate in both freshwater and saltwater. Fish have small brains relative to body size compared with other vertebrates, typically one-fifteenth the brain mass of a similarly sized bird or mammal. However, some fish have relatively large brains, notably mormyrids and sharks , which have brains about as large for their body weight as birds and marsupials . At
4029-733: The bony Osteichthyes . During the Devonian , fish diversity greatly increased, including among the placoderms, lobe-finned fishes, and early sharks, earning the Devonian the epithet "the age of fishes". Fishes are a paraphyletic group, since any clade containing all fish, such as the Gnathostomata or (for bony fish) Osteichthyes , also contains the clade of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates, mostly terrestrial), which are usually not considered fish. Some tetrapods, such as cetaceans and ichthyosaurs , have secondarily acquired
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#17327866203244108-523: The clade containing Aquilinae and Harpiinae). The diurnal birds of prey are formally classified into six families of two different orders (Accipitriformes and Falconiformes). These families were traditionally grouped together in a single order Falconiformes but are now split into two orders, the Falconiformes and Accipitriformes . The Cathartidae are sometimes placed in a separate order Cathartiformes . Formerly, they were sometimes placed in
4187-439: The evolution of migratory behaviour in this group, but its relevance needs further investigation. The evolution of migration in animals seems to be a complex and difficult topic with many unanswered questions. A recent study discovered new connections between migration and the ecology, life history of raptors. A brief overview from abstract of the published paper shows that "clutch size and hunting strategies have been proved to be
4266-471: The existing literature combining anatomical, genetic, and behavioural studies showed that, in general, raptors have functional olfactory systems that they are likely to use in a range of different contexts. Birds of prey have been historically persecuted both directly and indirectly. In the Danish Faroe Islands , there were rewards Naebbetold (by royal decree from 1741) given in return for
4345-493: The familiar names were applied to new birds with similar characteristics. Names that have generalised this way include: kite ( Milvus milvus ), sparrowhawk or sparhawk ( Accipiter nisus ), goshawk ( Accipiter gentilis ), kestrel ( Falco tinninculus ), hobby ( Falco subbuteo ), harrier (simplified from "hen-harrier", Circus cyaneus ), buzzard ( Buteo buteo ). Some names have not generalised, and refer to single species (or groups of closely related (sub)species), such as
4424-405: The front of the brain are the olfactory lobes , a pair of structures that receive and process signals from the nostrils via the two olfactory nerves . Fish that hunt primarily by smell, such as hagfish and sharks, have very large olfactory lobes. Behind these is the telencephalon , which in fish deals mostly with olfaction. Together these structures form the forebrain. Connecting the forebrain to
4503-412: The gills flows in the opposite direction to the water, resulting in efficient countercurrent exchange . The gills push the oxygen-poor water out through openings in the sides of the pharynx. Cartilaginous fish have multiple gill openings: sharks usually have five, sometimes six or seven pairs; they often have to swim to oxygenate their gills. Bony fish have a single gill opening on each side, hidden beneath
4582-532: The gills. Oxygen-rich blood then flows without further pumping, unlike in mammals, to the body tissues. Finally, oxygen-depleted blood returns to the heart. Fish exchange gases using gills on either side of the pharynx . Gills consist of comblike structures called filaments. Each filament contains a capillary network that provides a large surface area for exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide . Fish exchange gases by pulling oxygen-rich water through their mouths and pumping it over their gills. Capillary blood in
4661-447: The gut, leading from the mouth to the anus. The mouth of most fishes contains teeth to grip prey, bite off or scrape plant material, or crush the food. An esophagus carries food to the stomach where it may be stored and partially digested. A sphincter, the pylorus, releases food to the intestine at intervals. Many fish have finger-shaped pouches, pyloric caeca , around the pylorus, of doubtful function. The pancreas secretes enzymes into
4740-457: The heart from the rest of the body. Lungfish, bichirs, ropefish, bowfins, snakefish, and the African knifefish have evolved to reduce such mixing, and to reduce oxygen loss from the gills to oxygen-poor water. Bichirs and lungfish have tetrapod-like paired lungs, requiring them to surface to gulp air, and making them obligate air breathers. Many other fish, including inhabitants of rock pools and
4819-400: The highest density of photoreceptors, and provide the highest points of visual acuity. The deep fovea points forward at an approximate 45° angle, while the shallow fovea points approximately 15° to the right or left of the head axis. Several raptor species repeatedly cock their heads into three distinct positions while observing an object. First, is straight ahead with their head pointed towards
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#17327866203244898-432: The highly acute deep fovea. Like all birds, raptors possess tetrachromacy , however, due to their emphasis on visual acuity, many diurnal birds of prey have little ability to see ultraviolet light as this produces chromatic aberration which decreases the clarity of vision. Fish A fish ( pl. : fish or fishes ) is an aquatic , anamniotic , gill -bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fins and
4977-455: The intestine to digest the food; other enzymes are secreted directly by the intestine itself. The liver produces bile which helps to break up fat into an emulsion which can be absorbed in the intestine. Most fish release their nitrogenous wastes as ammonia . This may be excreted through the gills or filtered by the kidneys . Salt is excreted by the rectal gland. Saltwater fish tend to lose water by osmosis ; their kidneys return water to
5056-419: The midbrain is the diencephalon ; it works with hormones and homeostasis . The pineal body is just above the diencephalon; it detects light, maintains circadian rhythms, and controls color changes. The midbrain contains the two optic lobes . These are very large in species that hunt by sight, such as rainbow trout and cichlids . The hindbrain controls swimming and balance.The single-lobed cerebellum
5135-603: The most important variables in shaping distribution areas, and also the geographic dissimilarities may mask important relationships between life history traits and migratory behaviours. The West Palearctic-Afrotropical and the North-South American migratory systems are fundamentally different from the East Palearctic-Indomalayan system, owing to the presence versus absence of ecological barriers." Maximum entropy modelling can help in answering
5214-821: The narrower definition followed in this page, excluding many piscivorous predators such as storks , cranes , herons , gulls , skuas , penguins , and kingfishers , as well as many primarily insectivorous birds such as passerines (e.g. shrikes ), nightjars , frogmouths , songbirds such as crows and ravens , alongside opportunistic predators from predominantly frugivorous or herbivorous ratites such as cassowaries and rheas . Some extinct predatory telluravian birds had talons similar to those of modern birds of prey, including mousebird relatives ( Sandcoleidae ), and Messelasturidae indicating possible common descent . Some Enantiornithes also had such talons, indicating possible convergent evolution , as enanthiornithines weren't even modern birds . The term raptor
5293-444: The nest and hunting. Larger females are favored because they can incubate larger numbers of offspring, while also being able to brood a larger clutch size. It is a long-standing belief that birds lack any sense of smell, but it has become clear that many birds do have functional olfactory systems . Despite this, most raptors are still considered to primarily rely on vision, with raptor vision being extensively studied. A 2020 review of
5372-443: The nine largest families; from largest to smallest, these are Cyprinidae , Gobiidae , Cichlidae , Characidae , Loricariidae , Balitoridae , Serranidae , Labridae , and Scorpaenidae . About 64 families are monotypic , containing only one species. Fish range in size from the huge 16-metre (52 ft) whale shark to some tiny teleosts only 8-millimetre (0.3 in) long, such as the cyprinid Paedocypris progenetica and
5451-629: The object. Second and third are sideways to the right or left of the object, with their head axis positioned approximately 40° adjacent to the object. This movement is believed to be associated with lining up the incoming image to fall on the deep fovea. Raptors will choose which head position to use depending on the distance to the object. At distances as close as 8m, they used primarily binocular vision. At distances greater than 21m, they spent more time using monocular vision. At distances greater than 40m, they spent 80% or more time using their monocular vision. This suggests that raptors tilt their head to rely on
5530-470: The oldest dates published so far in the case of birds of prey. For example, a previous reconstruction of migratory behaviour in one Buteo clade with a result of the origin of migration around 5 million years ago was also supported by that study. Migratory species of raptors may have had a southern origin because it seems that all of the major lineages within Accipitridae had an origin in one of
5609-402: The open ocean. Because the water all around is the same colour, reflecting an image of the water offers near-invisibility. Fish have a closed-loop circulatory system . The heart pumps the blood in a single loop throughout the body; for comparison, the mammal heart has two loops, one for the lungs to pick up oxygen, one for the body to deliver the oxygen. In fish, the heart pumps blood through
5688-412: The order Ciconiiformes . The secretary bird and/or osprey are sometimes listed as subfamilies of Acciptridae: Sagittariinae and Pandioninae, respectively. Australia's letter-winged kite is a member of the family Accipitridae , although it is a nocturnal bird. The nocturnal birds of prey—the owls —are classified separately as members of two extant families of the order Strigiformes : Below
5767-503: The order Gruiformes . And they are still not considered birds of prey in general parlance. Their bodies are also shaped completely differently from birds of prey. They have long legs and long necks. While secretarybirds also have long legs, they otherwise resemble raptors. Seriemas do not. Their beak is hooked, but too long. Migratory behaviour evolved multiple times within accipitrid raptors. The earliest event occurred nearly 14 to 12 million years ago. This result seems to be one of
5846-813: The owls remained monogeneric (family Ægolii, genus Strix ), whilst the diurnal raptors were divided into three families: Vulturini, Gypaëti, and Accipitrini. Thus Vieillot's families were similar to the Linnaean genera, with the difference that shrikes were no longer included amongst the birds of prey. In addition to the original Vultur and Falco (now reduced in scope), Vieillot adopted four genera from Savigny: Phene , Haliæetus , Pandion , and Elanus . He also introduced five new genera of vultures ( Gypagus , Catharista , Daptrius , Ibycter , Polyborus ) and eleven new genera of accipitrines ( Aquila , Circaëtus , Circus , Buteo , Milvus , Ictinia , Physeta , Harpia , Spizaëtus , Asturina , Sparvius ). Falconimorphae
5925-833: The placement of the birds of prey. Their analysis has found support in a clade consisting of the Strigiformes and Accipitriformes in new clade Hieraves . Hieraves was also recovered to be the sister clade to Australaves (which it includes the Cariamiformes and Falconiformes along with Psittacopasserae ). Below is their phylogeny from the study. Coraciimorphae (woodpeckers, rollers, hornbills, etc.) [REDACTED] Strigiformes (owls) [REDACTED] Accipitriformes (hawks, vultures, and relatives) [REDACTED] Cariamiformes (seriemas) [REDACTED] Falconiformes (falcons) [REDACTED] Psittacopasserae (parrots and songbirds) [REDACTED] Cariamiformes
6004-454: The placoderms, appeared in the Silurian and greatly diversified during the Devonian , the "Age of Fishes". Bony fish, distinguished by the presence of swim bladders and later ossified endoskeletons , emerged as the dominant group of fish after the end-Devonian extinction wiped out the apex placoderms. Bony fish are further divided into the lobe-finned and ray-finned fish . About 96% of all living fish species today are teleosts ,
6083-464: The question: why species winters at one location while the others are elsewhere. Temperature and precipitation related factors differ in the limitation of species distributions. "This suggests that the migratory behaviours differ among the three main migratory routes for these species" which may have important conservational consequences in the protection of migratory raptors. Birds of prey (raptors) are known to display patterns of sexual dimorphism . It
6162-423: The trans-Andean P. a. ghiesbreghti and P. a. costaricensis are more closely related to P. occidentalis than they are to P. a. albicollis . This is a bird of lowland forest and other woodlands. It ranges from southern Mexico through Central and South America to Peru , Bolivia and Brazil . It also breeds on Trinidad . The white hawk's range in central South America is the entire Amazon basin , from
6241-481: The very short tail is black with a broad white band. The bill is black and the legs are yellow. The sexes are similar, but females are larger and heavier—840 g (1.85 lb) compared to the male's 650 g (1.43 lb). Immature birds have extensive black spotting on the upperparts and dark-streaked whitish underparts. The call of the white hawk is a plaintive kerwee . There are four subspecies : All subspecies look mainly white from below. The identity of
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