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Osprey
The osprey (/ˈɒspri, -preɪ/; Pandion haliaetus), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and a wingspan of 180 cm (71 in). It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.
The osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica, although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.
As its other common names suggest, the osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It possesses specialised physical characteristics and unique behaviour in hunting its prey. Because of its unique characteristics it is classified in its own taxonomic genus, Pandion, and family, Pandionidae.
The osprey was described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus under the name Falco haliaetus in his landmark tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Europe, but in 1761 he restricted the locality to Sweden. The osprey is the only extant species placed in the genus Pandion that was introduced by the French zoologist Marie Jules César Savigny in 1809. The genus is the sole member of the family Pandionidae. The species has always presented a riddle to taxonomists, but here it is treated as the sole living member of the family Pandionidae, and the family listed in its traditional place as part of the order Accipitriformes. Other schemes place it alongside the hawks and eagles in the family Accipitridae. The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy has placed it together with the other diurnal raptors in a greatly enlarged Ciconiiformes, but this results in an unnatural paraphyletic classification. Molecular phylogenetic analysis has found that the family Pandionidae is sister to the family Accipitridae. It is estimated that the two families diverged around 50.8 million years ago.
The osprey is unusual in that it is a sole living species that occurs nearly worldwide. Even the few subspecies are not unequivocally separable. There are four generally recognised subspecies, although differences are small, and ITIS lists only the first three.
Three extinct species have been named from the fossil record.
Pandion homalopteron described by Stuart L. Warter in 1976 was found in marine Middle Miocene deposits of the Barstovian age in the southern part of California. The second species Pandion lovensis was described by Jonathan J. Becker in 1985 and found in Florida; it dates to the Late Clarendonian and possibly represents a separate lineage from that of P. homalopteron and P. haliaetus. A number of claw fossils have been recovered from Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in Florida and South Carolina.[citation needed]
The oldest recognized family Pandionidae fossils were recovered from the Oligocene epoch Jebel Qatrani Formation in Faiyum Governorate, Egypt. However, they are not complete enough to assign to a specific genus. The remains of another Oligocene species were discovered in Hungary and described as P. pannonicus. Another Pandionidae claw fossil was recovered from Early Oligocene deposits in the Mainz basin, Germany, and was described in 2006 by Gerald Mayr.
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Osprey
The osprey (/ˈɒspri, -preɪ/; Pandion haliaetus), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and a wingspan of 180 cm (71 in). It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts.
The osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica, although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.
As its other common names suggest, the osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It possesses specialised physical characteristics and unique behaviour in hunting its prey. Because of its unique characteristics it is classified in its own taxonomic genus, Pandion, and family, Pandionidae.
The osprey was described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus under the name Falco haliaetus in his landmark tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Europe, but in 1761 he restricted the locality to Sweden. The osprey is the only extant species placed in the genus Pandion that was introduced by the French zoologist Marie Jules César Savigny in 1809. The genus is the sole member of the family Pandionidae. The species has always presented a riddle to taxonomists, but here it is treated as the sole living member of the family Pandionidae, and the family listed in its traditional place as part of the order Accipitriformes. Other schemes place it alongside the hawks and eagles in the family Accipitridae. The Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy has placed it together with the other diurnal raptors in a greatly enlarged Ciconiiformes, but this results in an unnatural paraphyletic classification. Molecular phylogenetic analysis has found that the family Pandionidae is sister to the family Accipitridae. It is estimated that the two families diverged around 50.8 million years ago.
The osprey is unusual in that it is a sole living species that occurs nearly worldwide. Even the few subspecies are not unequivocally separable. There are four generally recognised subspecies, although differences are small, and ITIS lists only the first three.
Three extinct species have been named from the fossil record.
Pandion homalopteron described by Stuart L. Warter in 1976 was found in marine Middle Miocene deposits of the Barstovian age in the southern part of California. The second species Pandion lovensis was described by Jonathan J. Becker in 1985 and found in Florida; it dates to the Late Clarendonian and possibly represents a separate lineage from that of P. homalopteron and P. haliaetus. A number of claw fossils have been recovered from Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments in Florida and South Carolina.[citation needed]
The oldest recognized family Pandionidae fossils were recovered from the Oligocene epoch Jebel Qatrani Formation in Faiyum Governorate, Egypt. However, they are not complete enough to assign to a specific genus. The remains of another Oligocene species were discovered in Hungary and described as P. pannonicus. Another Pandionidae claw fossil was recovered from Early Oligocene deposits in the Mainz basin, Germany, and was described in 2006 by Gerald Mayr.
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