Haliaeetus leucoryphus
| Pallas's fish eagle | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Accipitriformes |
| Family: | Accipitridae |
| Genus: | Haliaeetus |
| Species: | H. leucoryphus |
| Binomial name | |
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Haliaeetus leucoryphus (Pallas, 1771) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Aquila leucorypha Pallas, 1771 |
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Aquila leucorypha Pallas, 1771
Pallas's fish eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus), also known as Pallas's sea eagle or band-tailed fish eagle, is a large, brownish sea-eagle. It breeds in Central Asia, between the Caspian Sea and the Yellow Sea, from Kazakhstan and Mongolia to the Himalayas, Bangladesh and northern India. It is partially migratory, with central Asian birds wintering among the southern Asian birds in northern India, and also further west to the Persian Gulf.
It has a light brown hood over a white face. The wings are dark brown and the back rufous, darker underneath. The tail is black with a wide, distinctive white stripe. Underwings have a white band. Juveniles are overall darker with no band on the tail. It measures 72–84 cm (28–33 in) in length with a wingspan of 180–215 cm (71–85 in). Females, at 2.1-3.7 kg (4.6-8.2 lbs), are slightly larger than males, at 2-3.3 kg (4.4-7.3 lbs).
Its diet consists primarily of large freshwater fish. They also regularly predate water birds, including adult greylag geese, by assaulting them on the surface of the water and then flying off with the kill. Since that goose species is slightly heavier than the eagle, this is one of the greatest weight-lifting feats ever recorded for a flying bird. Another case of lifting a great load in this species is when, in the Yamuna River in north-central India, an eagle captured a huge carp and flew with the struggling fish very low over the water, before dropping it in response to gunfire. The carp was found to have weighed 6 kg (13 lb) about twice the weight of the eagle carrying it.
This species is the hardest-to-place sea-eagle. Among the species of its genus, it has no close living relatives. mtDNA sequence data is unable to reliably suggest a phylogenetic place for it among the sea-eagles. However, some information can be drawn from the molecular data, and especially from morphology and biogeography:
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