''Nisaetus'' (Crested hawk-eagles group) is a genus of subfamily Aquilinae found mainly in tropical

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

. They were earlier placed within the genus ''

Spizaetus ''Spizaetus'' is the typical hawk-eagle birds of prey genus found in the tropics of the Americas. It was however used to indicate a group of tropical eagles that included species occurring in southern and southeastern Asia and one representative ...

'' but molecular studies show that the Old World representatives were closer to the genus '' Ictinaetus'' than to the New World ''Spizaetus'' (in the stricter sense). They are slender-bodied, medium-sized hawk-eagles with rounded wings, long feathered legs, barred wings, crests and usually adapted to forest habitats.

Taxonomy and species

These Old World species were formerly placed in the genus ''

''. They were moved to the resurrected genus ''Nisaetus'' based on the results of molecular genetic studies published in 2005 and 2007. The genus ''Nisaetus'' had been introduced in 1836 by the English naturalist

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals from the Himala ...

with the

mountain hawk-eagle The mountain hawk-eagle (''Nisaetus nipalensis'') or Hodgson's hawk-eagle, is a large bird of prey native to Asia. The latter name is in reference to the naturalist, Brian Houghton Hodgson, who described the species after collecting one himself ...

as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

. The genus name ''Nisaetus'' combines the

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

''nisus'' for a sparrowhawk with the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''aetos'' meaning "eagle". The genus contains ten species.

References

* {{Accipitriformes-stub