Ichthyophaga is a genus of two species of
eagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
s, closely related to the
sea-eaglesA sea eagle is any of the birds of prey in the genus Haliaeetus in the bird of prey family Accipitridae....
in the genus
Haliaeetus. Both are native to southeastern
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, from the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
southeast to
SulawesiSulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
. They are smaller than the
Haliaeetus eagles, though overlapping in size with the smaller species of that genus. They share similar plumage, with grey heads grading into dull grey-brown wings and bodies, and white belly and legs. They differ in tail colour, with Lesser Fish-eagle having a brown tail, and Grey-headed Fish Eagle having a white tail with a black terminal band, and also in size, with Lesser Fish-eagle only about half of the weight of Grey-headed Fish Eagle.
Species
- Lesser Fish Eagle
The Lesser Fish Eagle is a species of large fish eagle found in the Indian Subcontinent, primarily in the foothills of the Himalayas. There have been some stray reports from Gujarat and Central India and in more recent times from the Kaveri river valley in southern India. The distribution in...
Ichthyophaga humilis
- Grey-headed Fish Eagle
The Grey-headed Fish Eagle is a bird of prey. Like all eagles, it is in the family Accipitridae.Grey-headed Fish Eagle breeds in southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka to Southeast asia...
Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus
Ecology
As their names suggest, both species feed largely on
fishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, caught mainly in
freshwaterFresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...
on lakes and large rivers, but also occasionally in
saltwaterSeawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...
in estuaries and along coasts.