The black-collared hawk (''Busarellus nigricollis'') is a species of

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 predat ...

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 ...

. It is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispe ...

within the genus ''Busarellus''. It has a widespread range of presence, from western

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s are subtropical or tropical moist lowland

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s, subtropical or tropical swamps, and swamps. The adult black-collared hawk has a more or less white head, tinged with buff, and with black shaft streaks on the crown. The body, above and below, and the mantle are bright cinnamon-rufous, paler on the chest. There is a black crescent on the upper breast. The back has scattered black shaft stripes; the flight and tail feathers are black with the base of the tail barred with rufous. The eyes are bright reddish brown, the cere and bill black, and the legs bluish white. Immatures are similar, but blotched with black, including on the crown, and the rufous barring on the tail is more extensive. The pale area on the chest is also more clearly marked. The upper surface of the wings is barred, and the eyes are brown. The nest is usually placed in a large tree, frequently near water, but sometimes in shade trees in coffee plantations or suburban areas. The nest is lined with green leaves. The female lays three to five eggs, dull white, spotted with pale yellow-brown or red-brown and a few darker freckles. There is no further information on its reproduction. The black-collared hawk lives on a diet mainly composed of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing 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. Approximately 95% of ...

. It also eats water bugs and occasionally other large

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

s, lizards,

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

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

s, other molluscs,

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can ...

s, small birds and nestlings,

rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...

s and other small mammals. In the 1870s, Ridgeway wrote that ''Busarellus'' (then known as ''Ichthyoborus'') had the "general form and appearance of '' Buteogallus aequinoctialis''", but that it "is much more nearly related to the heliatine groups", in which he included ''

Milvus ''Milvus'' is a genus of medium-sized birds of prey. The genus was erected by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1799 with the red kite as the type species. The name is the Latin word for the red kite. Species This is an Old ...

'', ''

Haliastur ''Haliastur'' is a genus of medium-sized diurnal birds of prey. It consists of two species of kites which form part of the subfamily Milvinae; some authorities place these species in the genus '' Milvus'', despite clear differences in behaviou ...

'', and '' Haliaaetus''. During the early-to-mid 20th century, ''Busarellus'' was conventionally placed near ''

Buteogallus ''Buteogallus'' is a genus of birds of prey in the family Accipitridae. All members of this genus are essentially neotropical, but the distribution of a single species extends slightly into the extreme southwestern United States. Many of the sp ...

'' in taxonomic order. The black-collared hawk has the basal phalanges of the inner toe fused, which may be an adaptation to prevent the toe from bending back when catching prey. This feature is shared with '' Ictinia'' and with the group of true milvine kites and sea eagles (''Milvus'', ''Haliastur'', ''Haliaaetus'', and '' Icthyophaga''). Research in molecular phylogenetics during the early 21st century indicates that there is a clear milvine–haliaetine clade that is related to a large group of buteonine hawks and their relatives. Within the buteonine group, ''Ictinia'' is near-basal, and ''Busarellus'' is a member of a clade shared with '' Geranospiza'', '' Rostrhamus'', and '' Helicolestes''.

Gallery

Black-collared hawk (Busarellus nigricollis) immature.JPG, immature bird
Mato Grosso do Sul,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Busarellus nigricollis -Miranda River, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil -flying-8 (2).jpg, Flying
Mato Grosso do Sul,

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1264645 black-collared hawk Birds of the Yucatán Peninsula Birds of Brazil Birds of prey of South America black-collared hawk Higher-level bird taxa restricted to the Neotropics Taxonomy articles created by Polbot