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The black-shouldered kite (''Elanus axillaris'') or Australian black-shouldered kite is a small raptor found in open habitat throughout Australia and resembles similar species found in Africa, Eurasia and North America, which have in the past also been named as black-shouldered kites. Measuring in length with a wingspan of , the adult black-shouldered kite is a small and graceful, predominantly pale grey and white, raptor with black shoulders and red eyes. Their primary call is a clear whistle, uttered in flight and while hovering. Though reported across Australia, they are most common in the south-east and south-west corners of the mainland. Their preferred habitat is open grasslands with scattered trees and they are often seen hunting along roadsides. Like all the elanid kites, it is a specialist predator of rodents, which it hunts singly or in pairs by hovering in mid-air above open land. Black-shouldered kites form monogamous pairs, breeding between August and January. The birds engage in aerial courtship displays which involve high circling flight and ritualised feeding mid-air. Three or four eggs are laid and incubated for around thirty days. Chicks are fully fledged within five weeks of hatching and can hunt for mice within a week of leaving the nest. Juveniles disperse widely from the home territory. ==Taxonomy== The black-shouldered kite was first described by English ornithologist John Latham in 1802, as ''Falco axillaris''.〔 Its specific name is derived from the Latin ''axilla'', meaning "shoulder". The name "black-shouldered kite" was formerly used for a Eurasian and African species, ''Elanus caeruleus'', with the Australian species, ''Elanus axillaris'', and the North American species, the white-tailed kite ''Elanus leucurus'', treated as subspecies of this. These three ''Elanus'' species have comparable plumage patterns and sizes, however, they are now regarded as distinct, and the name black-winged kite is used for ''E. caeruleus''. Modern references to the black-shouldered kite should therefore unambiguously mean the Australian species, ''E. axillaris''.〔 The Australian black-shouldered kite was formerly called ''E. notatus'', but it was not clear that the name applied to this species alone.〔 In 1851, British zoologist Edward Blyth described Elaninae, the "smooth clawed kites" as a formal subfamily of Accipitridae.〔 However, they are also grouped in Accipitrinae, the broader subfamily of hawks and eagles described by French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816.〔 A taxonomic proposal based on DNA studies has recommended classifying ''Elanus'' kites as a separate family (Elanidae).〔 A 2004 molecular study of cytochrome-''b'' DNA sequences shows them to have split off from typical hawks and eagles at an earlier date than the Osprey, which has been classified in its own family.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Black-shouldered kite」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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