The southern banded snake eagle, also known as the East African snake eagle or fasciated snake eagle (''Circaetus fasciolatus'') is a species of

snake eagle ''Circaetus'', the snake eagles, is a genus of medium-sized eagles in the bird of prey family Accipitridae. They are mainly resident African species, but the migratory short-toed snake eagle breeds from the Mediterranean basin into Russia, the ...

in the family

Accipitridae The Accipitridae is one of the three families within the order Accipitriformes, and is a family of small to large birds with strongly hooked bills and variable morphology based on diet. They feed on a range of prey items from insects to medium-s ...

which is found in eastern

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

Description

The Southern banded snake eagle is a rather small, stocky snake eagle with a large, rounded head which has a hooded beak. It has a grey-brown head contrasting slightly with the mainly blackish-brown upperparts and whitish underparts. The tail has a white tip and shows three distinct dark bands on the underside. The large eyes are pale yellow eyes, the feet and cere are yellow and the bill us black. The juvenile lacks the grey head, has mainly dark upperparts and the whitish pale underparts are marked with dark streaks on the face, throat and upper breast. The total length varies from 55 to 60 cm with females larger than males.

Voice

The Southern banded snake eagle is unobtrusive and is normally found due to its noisy, high-pitched call, "ko-ko-ko-kaw", repeatedly made either from a perch or while in flight.

Distribution

The Southern banded snake eagle occurs in a narrow band along the east African coast from southern

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

to the north eastern

Kwazulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

and inland along the Save River into south eastern

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

Habitat

The southern banded snake-eagle is a forest species and it mainly occurs in evergreen coastal forest but also in dense inland forests close to wetlands, it is occasionally recorded from more open areas of woodland.

Biology

As its name suggests the Southern banded snake eagle mainly eats

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

s, hunting from a perch, scanning the surroundings for prey. If a large snake is caught, it is torn up into bite-size pieces before feeding, however smaller snakes are swallowed whole, head-first. It has also been recorded feeding on

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s and

termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattode ...

alate Alate (Latin ''ālātus'', from ''āla'' (“wing”)) is an adjective and noun used in entomology and botany to refer to something that has wings or winglike structures. In entomology In entomology, "alate" usually refers to the winged form o ...

s. The nest is constructed by both sexes and is an open platform of small sticks roughly 50–70 cm wide with an inner cup which is 17 cm across and is lined with fresh foliage. The nest is normally placed in the main fork of a tree. The single egg is laid from August–October and is mainly incubated by the female for about 50 days, although the male may take over for short stints early on in the incubation period. Both parents feed the young on a diet of ripped up snakes. At first the male does the majority of the hunting, while the female looks after the nestling.

References

External links

Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds: ''Circaetus fasciolatus'' (Southern Banded Snake Eagle)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1193286

Southern banded snake eagle The southern banded snake eagle, also known as the East African snake eagle or fasciated snake eagle (''Circaetus fasciolatus'') is a species of snake eagle in the family Accipitridae which is found in eastern Sub-Saharan Africa. Description The ...

Birds of prey of Sub-Saharan Africa Birds of East Africa Birds of Southern Africa

Near threatened animals

Taxa named by Johann Jakob Kaup Taxonomy articles created by Polbot