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

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

which is found in eastern

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

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, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

to the north eastern

Kwazulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

and inland along the Save River into south eastern

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

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 reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

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 Lizard is the common name used for all Squamata, squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most Island#Oceanic isla ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

s and

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

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 of ...

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 (''Circaetus fasciolatus''), also known as the East African snake eagle or fasciated snake eagle, is a species of snake eagle in the family Accipitridae which is found in eastern Sub-Saharan Africa. Description T ...

Birds of prey of Sub-Saharan Africa Birds of East Africa Birds of Southern Africa Eagles Near threatened animals

Taxa named by Johann Jakob Kaup Taxonomy articles created by Polbot