Falcon

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Falcon

A falcon ( or ) is any species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
of raptor

Bird of prey

Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. Their claws and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
in the genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
Falco. The word comes from their Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
name falco, related to Latin falx
Falx

Falx is a Latin word originally meaning sickle, but was later used to mean any of a number of tools that had a curved blade that was sharp on the inside edge such as a scythe....
("sickle

Sickle

A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting cereal crop or cutting grass for hay. The inside of the curve is sharp, so that the user can draw or swing the blade against the base of the crop, catching it in the curve and slicing it at the same time....
") because of the shape of these birds' wings.
Overview
Adult falcons have thin tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and to change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have longer flight feather

Flight feather

Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges while those on the tail are called rectrices ....
s which makes their configuration more like that of a general-purpose bird such as a broadwing

Broadwing (bird of prey)

"Broadwing" is a falconry's term for a bird of prey of the buzzard or eagle type with long wings with long flight feathers ....
.

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Encyclopedia

A falcon ( or ) is any species

Species

Bird of prey

Genus

Latin

Sickle

Overview

Adult falcons have thin tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and to change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have longer flight feather

Flight feather

Broadwing (bird of prey)

"Broadwing" is a falconry's term for a bird of prey of the buzzard or eagle type with long wings with long flight feathers ....
. This is to make it easier for them to fly while learning the exceptional skills required to be effective hunters in their adult configuration. A falcon's wings are shaped like a scythe

Scythe

A scythe is an agriculture hand tool for mowing grass or reaping agriculture. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia....
. Common misconceptions of the difference of a scythe

Scythe

Sickle

A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting cereal crop or cutting grass for hay. The inside of the curve is sharp, so that the user can draw or swing the blade against the base of the crop, catching it in the curve and slicing it at the same time....
are the cause of the misconception of the shape of the falcon's wings.

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

The Peregrine Falcon , also known simply as the Peregrine, and historically as the "Duck Hawk" in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution bird of prey in the family Falconidae....
s have been recorded diving at speeds of 200 miles per hour (322 km/hr), making them the fastest-moving creatures on Earth. Other falcons include the Gyrfalcon

Gyrfalcon

The gyrfalcon or , also spelled gerfalcon, is the largest of all falcon species. The Gyrfalcon breeds on Arctic coasts and islands of North America, Europe and Asia....
, Lanner Falcon

Lanner Falcon

The Lanner Falcon is a large bird of prey that breeds in Africa, southeast Europe and just into Asia. It is mainly resident, but some birds bird migration more widely after the breeding season....
, and the Merlin

Merlin (bird)

The Merlin is a smallish falcon that breeds in northern North America, Europe and Asia. In North America it was once and sometimes still is colloquially called "pigeon hawk" though being a falcon it is not very closely related to true hawks....
. Some small falcons with long narrow wings are called hobbies

Hobby (bird)

Falconidae

Caracara

Caracaras are bird of prey in the family Falconidae. They are principally birds of South America and Central America, just reaching the southern USA....
s, Laughing Falcon

Laughing Falcon

The Laughing Falcon, Herpetotheres cachinnans, also called the Snake Hawk , is a medium-sized bird of prey in the Falconidae , the only member of the genus Herpetotheres....
, forest falcon

Forest falcon

Forest falcons are members of the genus Micrastur, part of the family Falconidae. They are endemism to the Americas, being found from Mexico in north, south through Central America, and large parts of South America, as far south as northern Argentina....
s, and falconets

Microhierax

The typical falconets, Microhierax, are a genus of bird of prey in the Falconidae family .The world's smallest carnivorous birds are the Black-thighed Falconet found throughout Southeast Asia, and the White-fronted Falconet on the island of Borneo....
.

The traditional term for a male falcon is tercel (British

British English

British English or UK English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere....
spelling) or tiercel (American

American English

PhonologyIn many ways, compared to English language in England, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast of the United States , partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of English English at a time when those varieties we...
spelling), from Latin tertius = third

3 (number)

----3 is a number, Numeral system, and glyph. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4 ....
because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is approximately one third smaller than the female (Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
tiercelet).

A falcon chick, especially one reared for falconry

Falconry

Falconry or hawking is an art or sport which involves the use of trained Bird of preys to hunt or pursue game for humans. There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer flies a hawk ....
, that is still in its downy stage is known as an eyas (sometimes spelt eyass). The word arose by mistaken division of Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
un niais, from Latin presumed *nidiscus ("nestling", from nidus = nest

Nest

A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's Egg s and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some life material such as twigs, grass, and leaf; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building....
). The technique of hunting with trained captive birds of prey is known as falconry

Falconry

Falconry or hawking is an art or sport which involves the use of trained Bird of preys to hunt or pursue game for humans. There are two traditional terms used to describe a person involved in falconry: a falconer flies a falcon; an austringer flies a hawk ....
.

As is the case with many birds of prey, falcons are renowned for their exceptional powers of vision; one species has been found to have a visual acuity of 2.6 times that of a normal human.

In February 2005, the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
ornithologist

Ornithology

Ornithology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of birds. Several aspects of the study of ornithology differ from closely related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds....
Louis Lefebvre announced a method of measuring avian intelligence in terms of their innovation in feeding habits. The falcon and corvids

Corvidae

Corvidae is a Cosmopolitan distribution family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rook s, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, Pyrrhocorax and nutcracker ....
scored highest on this scale.

Systematics and evolution

Compared to other birds of prey, the fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
record of the falcons is not well distributed in time. The oldest fossils tentatively assigned to this genus are from the Late Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is a Geologic time scale of the Neogene period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.33 million years before the present. As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are uncertain....
, less than 10 million years ago. This coincides with a period in which many modern genera of birds became recognizable in the fossil record. The falcon lineage may however be somewhat older than this and given the distribution of fossil and living Falco taxa is probably of North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
n, Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
n or possibly Middle East

Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
ern or Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
an in origin.

Falcons are roughly divisible into three or four groups. The first contains the kestrel

Kestrel

The name kestrel is given to several different members of the falcon genus, Falco. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around 10?20 m over open country and swoop down on prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects....
s (probably excepting the American Kestrel

American Kestrel

The American Kestrel is a small falcon. This bird was colloquially known in North America as the "Sparrow Hawk". This name is misleading because it implies a connection with the Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus, which is unrelated; the latter is an accipiter rather than a falcon....
); usually small and stocky falcons of mainly brown upperside color and sometimes sexually dimorphic; three African species that are generally grey in color stand apart from the typical members of this group. Kestrels feed chiefly on terrestrial

Terrestrial animal

Terrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land, as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats ....
vertebrate

Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
s and invertebrates of appropriate size, such as rodents, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s, or insects.

The second group contains slightly larger (on average) and more elegant species, the hobbies

Hobby (bird)

A hobby is a fairly small, very swift falcon with long, narrow wings. There are four birds called hobby, and some others which, although termed falcon, are very similar....
and relatives. These birds are characterized by considerable amounts of dark slaty grey in their plumage; the malar area is nearly always black. They feed mainly on smaller birds.

Third are the Peregrine Falcon and its relatives: large powerful birds which also have a black malar area (except some very light color morphs), and often a black cap also. Otherwise, they are somewhat intermediate between the other groups, being chiefly medium grey with some lighter or brownish colours on the upper side. They are on average more delicately patterned than the hobbies and if the hierofalcons are excluded (see below), this group contains typically species with horizontal barring on the underside. As opposed to the other groups, where tail colour varies much in general but little according to evolution

Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
ary relatedness, the tails of the large falcons are quite uniformly dark grey with rather inconspicuous black banding and small white tips, though this is probably plesiomorphic. These large Falco feed on mid-sized birds and terrestrial vertebrates.

Very similar to these and sometimes included therein are the 4 or so species of hierofalcon

Hierofalcon

The hierofalcons are four closely related species of falcon which make up the subgenus Hierofalco:* Lanner Falcon, Falco biarmicus...
s (literally, "hawk-falcons"). They represent taxa with usually more phaeomelanins which impart reddish or brown colors, and generally more strongly patterned plumage reminiscent of hawk

Hawk

The term hawk can be used in several ways:* In strict usage in Europe and Asia, to mean any of the species in the subfamily Accipitrinae, which comprises the genus Accipiter, Micronisus, Melierax, Urotriorchis and Megatriorchis....
s. Notably, their undersides have a lengthwise pattern of blotches, lines or arrowhead marks.

While these three or four groups, loosely circumscribed, are an informal arrangement, they probably contain several distinct clade

Clade

Cytochrome b

DNA sequence

A DNA sequence or genetic sequence is a succession of letters representing the primary structure of a real or hypothetical DNA molecule or strand, with the capacity to carry information as described by the central dogma of molecular biology....
data of some kestrels (Groombridge et al. 2002) identified a clade containing the Common Kestrel and related "malar

Malar

There are several meanings for malar:*Tamil language for flower*Latin for cheek*Malar , a deity in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons...
-striped" species, to the exclusion of such taxa as the Greater Kestrel (which lacks a malar stripe), the Lesser Kestrel (which is very similar to the Common but also has no malar stripe), and the American Kestrel. The latter species has a malar stripe, but its color pattern - apart from the brownish back - and notably also the black feathers behind the ear, which never occur in the true kestrels, are more reminiscent of some hobbies. The malar-striped kestrels apparently split from their relatives in the Gelasian

Gelasian

The Gelasian is a faunal stage whose belonging to either the Pliocene or the Pleistocene epoch s is currently discussed. It spans the time between 2.588 ? 0.005 mya and 1.806 ? 0.005 mya.....
, roughly 2.5-2 mya

Mya (unit)

In astronomy, geology, and paleontology, mya or "m.y.a." is an abbreviation for "million years ago". Like the related unit bya, mya is traditionally written in lower case....
, and are apparently of tropical East African origin. The entire "true kestrel" group - excluding the American species - is probably a distinct and quite young clade

Clade

A clade is a term used in modern alpha taxonomy, the scientific classification of living and fossil organisms, to describe a monophyletic group, defined as a group consisting of a single common ancestor and all its descendants.The term "monophyletic group" is used in this article in the conventional sense of "an a...
, as also suggested by their numerous apomorphies.

Other studies have confirmed that the hierofalcons are a monophyletic group - and, incidentally, that hybridization is quite frequent at least in the larger species falcon species. Initial studies of mtDNA cytochrome b

Cytochrome b

Cytochrome b/b6 is main subunit of transmembrane cytochrome bc1 complex and Cytochrome b6f complex complexes.In the mitochondrion of eukaryotes and in aerobic prokaryotes, cytochrome b is a component of respiratory chain complex III - also known as the bc1 complex or ubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase....
sequence data suggested that the hierofalcons are basal among living falcons. This is now known to be an erroneous result due to the presence of a numt

Numt

Numt is an abbreviated term for ?nuclear mitochondrial DNA?, which describes any transfer or ?transposition? of cytoplasmic mitochondrial DNA sequences into the separate nuclear genome of a eukaryotic organism....
(Wink & Sauer-Gürth 2000); in reality the hierofalcons are a rather young group, originating maybe at the same time as the start of the main kestrel radiaton, about 2 million years ago. This lineage seems to have gone nearly extinct at some point in the past; the present diversity is of very recent origin, though little is known about their fossil history (Nittinger et al. 2005, Johnson et al. 2007).

The phylogeny and delimitations of the Peregrine and hobbies groups is more problematic. Molecular studies have only been conducted on a few species, and namely the morphologically ambiguous taxa have often been little researched. The morphology

Morphology (biology)

The term morphology in biology refers to form, structure and configuration of an organism. This includes aspects of the outward appearance as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs....
of the syrinx

Syrinx

In classical mythology, Syrinx was a nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Pursued by the amorous Greek god Pan , she ran to the river's edge and asked for assistance from the river nymphs....
, which contributes well to resolving the overall phylogeny of the Falconidae

Falconidae

The falcons and caracaras are around 60 species of diurnal birds of prey that comprise the family Falconidae. The family is divided into two subfamiles, Polyborinae, which includes the caracaras and forest falcons, and Falconinae, the falcons, kestrels and falconets....
, is not very informative in the present genus. Nonetheless, a core group containing the Peregrine and Barbary falcons which in turn group with the hierofalcons and the more distant Prairie Falcon (which was sometimes placed with the hierofalcons, even though it is entirely distinct biogeographically), as well as at least most of the "typical" hobbies, are confirmed to be monophyletic as suspected.

Given that the American Falcos of today belong to the Peregrine group or are apparently more basal species, it seems that the initially most successful evolutionary radiation

Evolutionary radiation

An evolutionary radiation is an increase in taxonomy diversity or Morphology disparity, due to adaptation change or the opening of ecospace. Radiations may affect one clade or many, and be rapid or gradual; where they are rapid, and driven by a single lineage's adaptation to their environment, they are termed adaptive radiations....
was an Holarctic

Holarctic

The Holarctic ecozone refers to the habitats found throughout the northern continents of the world as a whole. This region is divided into the Palearctic, consisting of Northern Africa and all of Eurasia, with the exception of Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and the Nearctic, consisting of North America south to northern Mexico....
one that originated possibly around central Eurasia or in (northern) Africa. One or several lineages were present in North America by the Early Pliocene at latest.

In conclusion, the origin of today's major Falco groups - the "typical" hobbies and kestrels for example, or the Peregine-hierofalcon complex, or the Aplomado Falcon lineage - can be quite confidently placed from the Miocene

Miocene

Pliocene

The Pliocene epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5.332 million to 1.806 million years before present.The Pliocene is the second epoch of the Neogene period in the Cenozoic era....
boundary through the Zanclean

Zanclean

In the geologic time scale, the is the lowest stage of the Pliocene epoch . It spans the time between 5.332 ? 0.005 annum and 3.6 ? 0.005 Ma ....
and Piacenzian

Piacenzian

Piacenzian is a age of the Pliocene epoch . It spans the time between 3.6 ? 0.005 annum and 2.588 ? 0.005 Ma .It is usually referred to as the Early Late Pliocene, and sometimes, unofficially, as the Middle Pliocene....
and just into the Gelasian, that is from about 8 to 2.4 million years ago, when the malar-striped kestrels diversified. Some groups of falcons, such as the hierofalcon complex or the Peregrine-Barbary superspecies have only evolved in more recent times; the species of the former seem to be a mere 120.000 years old or so (Nittinger et al. 2005).

Species

The sequence follows the taxonomic order of White et al. (1996), except for adjustments in the kestrel sequence.

Madagascar Kestrel
Madagascar Kestrel

The Madagascar Kestrel , also known as Malagasy Spotted Kestrel, Newton's Kestrel, Madagascar Spotted Kestrel, katiti or hitsikitsika , is a small bird of prey of the genus Falcon....
, Falco newtoni
Seychelles Kestrel
Seychelles Kestrel

The Seychelles Kestrel is a small bird of prey belonging to the genus Falco in the falcon family, Falconidae. It is endemism to the Seychelles Islands where it is the only breeding bird of prey....
, Falco araea
Mauritius Kestrel
Mauritius Kestrel

The Mauritius Kestrel is a bird of prey from the family Falconidae endemic to Mauritius. It is the most distinct of the Indian Ocean kestrels. It colonized its island home to evolve into a distinct species probably during the Gelasian ....
, Falco punctatus
Réunion Kestrel
Réunion Kestrel

The R?union Kestrel is an extinct bird of prey belonging to the falcon family. It inhabited the Mascarene island of R?union and was part of the Indian Ocean Kestrels of kestrels....
, Falco duboisi - extinct (c.1700)
Spotted Kestrel
Spotted Kestrel

The Spotted Kestrel is also known as the Moluccan Kestrel....
, Falco moluccensis
Nankeen Kestrel
Nankeen Kestrel

The Australian or Nankeen Kestrel, Falco cenchroides, is one of the smallest falcons, and unlike many, does not rely on speed to catch its prey....
or Australian Kestrel, Falco cenchroides
Common Kestrel
Common Kestrel

The Common Kestrel is a bird of prey species belonging to the kestrel group of the falcon family Falconidae. It is also known as the European Kestrel, Eurasian Kestrel, or Old World Kestrel....
, Falco tinnunculus

Rock Kestrel, Falco (tinnunculus) rupicolus

Greater Kestrel
Greater Kestrel

The Greater Kestrel or White-eyed Kestrel is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is one of the largest kestrels and is found in open country in southern and eastern Africa....
, Falco rupicoloides
Fox Kestrel
Fox Kestrel

The Fox Kestrel is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is found in arid, open country in Africa....
, Falco alopex
Lesser Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel

The Lesser Kestrel is a small falcon. This species breeds from the Mediterranean across southern central Asia to China and Bangladesh. It is a summer bird migration, wintering in Africa and Pakistan....
, Falco naumanni
Grey Kestrel
Grey Kestrel

The Grey Kestrel is an African bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. Its closest relatives are the Banded Kestrel and Dickinson's Kestrel and the three are sometimes placed in the subgenus Dissodectes....
, Falco ardosiaceus
Dickinson's Kestrel
Dickinson's Kestrel

Dickinson's Kestrel is a bird of prey of southern and eastern Africa belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is named after John Dickinson, an England physician and missionary who collected the type specimen....
, Falco dickinsoni
Banded Kestrel
Banded Kestrel

The Banded Kestrel is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is endemism to Madagascar and is also known as the Madagascar Banded Kestrel, Barred Kestrel or Madagascar Barred Kestrel....
, Falco zoniventris
Red-necked Falcon
Red-necked Falcon

The Red-necked Falcon or Red-headed Merlin is a bird of prey in the falcon family. This bird is a widespread resident in India and adjacent regions as well as sub-Saharan Africa....
, Falco chicquera

African Red-necked Falcon, Falco (chicquera) ruficollis

Red-footed Falcon
Red-footed Falcon

The Red-footed Falcon , formerly Western Red-footed Falcon, is a bird of prey. It belongs to the family Falconidae, the falcons. This bird is found in eastern Europe and Asia although its numbers are dwindling rapidly due to habitat loss and hunting....
, Falco vespertinus
Amur Falcon
Amur Falcon

The Amur Falcon , formerly Eastern Red-footed Falcon, is a small bird of prey of the falcon family. It breeds in south-eastern Siberia and Northern China, wintering in Southern Africa....
, Falco amurensis
Eleonora's Falcon
Eleonora's Falcon

Eleonora's Falcon is a medium-sized falcon. It belongs to the hobby group, a rather close-knit number of similar falcons often considered a subgenus Hypotriorchis....
, Falco eleonorae
Sooty Falcon
Sooty Falcon

The Sooty Falcon is a medium-sized falcon breeding from northeastern Africa to the southern Persian Gulf region. It belongs to the hobby group, a rather close-knit number of similar falcons often considered a subgenus Hypotriorchis....
, Falco concolor
American Kestrel
American Kestrel

The American Kestrel is a small falcon. This bird was colloquially known in North America as the "Sparrow Hawk". This name is misleading because it implies a connection with the Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus, which is unrelated; the latter is an accipiter rather than a falcon....
or "Sparrow Hawk", Falco sparverius
Aplomado Falcon
Aplomado Falcon

The Aplomado Falcon, Falco femoralis, is a medium-sized falcon of the Americas. The species' largest contiguous range is in South America, but not in the deep interior Amazon Basin....
, Falco femoralis
(American) Merlin
Merlin (bird)

The Merlin is a smallish falcon that breeds in northern North America, Europe and Asia. In North America it was once and sometimes still is colloquially called "pigeon hawk" though being a falcon it is not very closely related to true hawks....
or "Pigeon Hawk", Falco columbarius

Eurasian Merlin, Falco (columbarius) aesalon

Bat Falcon
Bat Falcon

The Bat Falcon is a falcon that is a resident breeder in tropical Mexico, central America and South America and Trinidad. It was long known as Falco albigularis; the name Falco fusco-coerulescens or Falco fuscocaerulescens, long used for the Aplomado Falcon, are now believed to refer to the present species ....
, Falco rufigularis
Orange-breasted Falcon
Orange-breasted Falcon

The Orange-breasted Falcon is a bird of the falcon family. It is probably closely related to and looks like a larger version of the Bat Falcon....
, Falco deiroleucus
Eurasian Hobby
Eurasian Hobby

The Eurasian Hobby , or just simply Hobby, is a small slim falcon. It belongs to a rather close-knit group of similar falcons often considered a subgenus Hypotriorchis....
, Falco subbuteo
African Hobby
African Hobby

The African Hobby is a species of bird of prey in the Falconidae family.It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique...
, Falco cuvierii
Oriental Hobby
Oriental Hobby

The Oriental Hobby is a species of falcon typically 27-30 cm long. It can be found in the eastern Himalayas and ranges to southern China, Hainan and southwards through Indochina to Southern Asia and Australasia....
, Falco severus
Australian Hobby
Australian Hobby

The Australian Hobby or Little Falcon is a falcon found mainly in Australia. It is also a winter migrant to Indonesia and New Guinea. It is one of Australia's smallest Bird of preys and is about 30-36 cm long....
or Little Falcon, Falco longipennis
New Zealand Falcon, Falco novaeseelandiae
Brown Falcon
Brown Falcon

The Brown Falcon, Falco berigora, is a member of the falcon genus found in the drier regions of Australia. Its specific name berigora is derived from an aboriginal name for the bird....
, Falco berigora
Grey Falcon
Grey Falcon

The Grey Falcon, Falco hypoleucos, is a rare medium-sized falcon, one of the enigmatic ?mystery? birds of Australia, neither easily nor predictably seen....
, Falco hypoleucos
Black Falcon
Black Falcon

The Black Falcon is a medium-large falcon that lives only in Australia. It is mainly found in open grasslands and woodlands in the north of Australia....
, Falco subniger
Lanner Falcon
Lanner Falcon

The Lanner Falcon is a large bird of prey that breeds in Africa, southeast Europe and just into Asia. It is mainly resident, but some birds bird migration more widely after the breeding season....
, Falco biarmicus
Laggar Falcon
Laggar Falcon

The Laggar Falcon is a mid-sized bird of prey which occurs in the Indian subcontinent from extreme south-east Iran, south-east Afghanistan, Pakistan, through India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and north-west Myanmar....
, Falco jugger
Saker Falcon
Saker Falcon

The Saker Falcon is a very large falcon. This species breeds from eastern Europe eastwards across Asia to Manchuria. It is mainly bird migration except in the southernmost parts of its range, wintering in Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula, northern India, Iran and western China....
, Falco cherrug

Altai Falcon, Falco altaicus (status unclear)

Gyrfalcon
Gyrfalcon

The gyrfalcon or , also spelled gerfalcon, is the largest of all falcon species. The Gyrfalcon breeds on Arctic coasts and islands of North America, Europe and Asia....
, Falco rusticolus
Prairie Falcon
Prairie Falcon

The Prairie Falcon is a medium-sized falcon of western North America.It is about the size of a Peregrine Falcon or a crow, with an average length of 40 cm , wingspan of 1 metre , and weight of 720 g ....
, Falco mexicanus
Peregrine Falcon
Peregrine Falcon

The Peregrine Falcon , also known simply as the Peregrine, and historically as the "Duck Hawk" in North America, is a Cosmopolitan distribution bird of prey in the family Falconidae....
or "Duck Hawk", Falco peregrinus

Peale's Falcon
Peale's Falcon

The Peale's Falcon Falco peregrinus pealei is a subspecies of the Peregrine Falcon. This race was first identified by the Ornithology Robert Ridgway in 1873....
, Falco peregrinus pealei
Pallid Falcon, Falco peregrinus cassini var. kreyenborgi
Barbary Falcon
Barbary Falcon

The Barbary Falcon is a medium-sized falcon about the size of a crow. This bird of prey breeds in the Canary Islands and on the coasts of north Africa....
, Falco (peregrinus) pelegrinoides

Taita Falcon
Taita Falcon

The Taita Falcon Falco fasciinucha is one of the smallest Falcons in the Southern African Sub-region. It was first found in the Taita Hills of Kenya whence comes its name....
, Falco fasciinucha

Fossil record

Falco medius (Late Miocene of Cherevichnyi, Ukraine)
?Falco sp. (Late Miocene of Idaho)
Falco sp. (Early Pliocene of Kansas)
Falco sp. (Early Pliocene of Bulgaria - Early Pleistocene of Spain and Czechia)
Falco oregonus (Early/Middle Pliocene of Fossil Lake, Oregon) - possibly not distinct from a living species
Falco umanskajae (Late Pliocene of Kryzhanovka, Ukraine) - includes "Falco odessanus", a nomen nudum
Nomen nudum

The phrase nomen nudum is a Latin language term, meaning "naked name". In taxonomy, this is used to indicate a term or phrase which looks like a scientific name, and may well have been intended to become a scientific name, but fails to be one because it was not published with an adequate description , and thus is "bare" or "naked"....
?Falco bakalovi (Late Pliocene of Varshets, Bulgaria)
Falco antiquus (Middle Pleistocene of Noailles, France and possibly Horvolgy, Hungary)
Cuban Kestrel, Falco kurochkini (Late Pleistocene/Holocene of Cuba, West Indies)
Falco chowi (China)

Several more paleosubspecies of extant species also been described; see species accounts for these.

"Sushkinia" pliocaena from the Early Pliocene of Pavlodar (Kazakhstan) appears to be a falcon of some sort. It might belong into this genus or a closely related one (Becker 1987). In any case, the genus name Sushkinia is invalid for this animal because it had already been allocated to a prehistoric dragonfly

Dragonfly

A dragonfly is a type of insect belonging to the order Odonata, the suborder Epiprocta or, in the strict sense, the infraorder Anisoptera....
relative.

The supposed "Falco" pisanus was actually a pigeon of the genus Columba
Columba (genus)

The large bird genus Columba comprises a group of medium to large stout-bodied dove, often referred to as the typical pigeons. The term columba is the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek ???????? ?a diver?, from ???????? , ?to dive, plunge headlong, swim?....
, possibly the same as Columba omnisanctorum which in that case would adopt the older species name of the "falcon" (Mlíkovský 2002). The Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
fossil "Falco" falconellus (or "F." falconella) from Wyoming is a bird of uncertain affiliations, maybe a falconid, maybe not; it certainly does not belong into this genus. "Falco" readei is now considered a paleosubspecies of the Yellow-headed Caracara

Yellow-headed Caracara

The Yellow-headed Caracara, Milvago chimachima, is a bird of prey in the family Falconidae. It lives in the southern portions of Central America....
(Milvago chimachima).

Footnotes

External links

on the Internet Bird Collection
Peregrine, owl, eagle and osprey cams, facts, and other resources.