Kingdom Animalia Order Accipitriformes Scientific name Ichthyophaga Rank Genus | Phylum Chordata Family Accipitridae Higher classification Accipitrinae | |
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Lower classifications Grey‑headed fish eagle, Lesser fish eagle | ||
Ichthyophaga is a genus of two species of eagles, closely related to the sea-eagles in the genus Haliaeetus. Both are native to southeastern Asia, from the Indian subcontinent southeast to Sulawesi. They are smaller than the Haliaeetus eagles, though overlapping in size with the smaller species of that genus. They share similar plumage, with grey heads grading into dull grey-brown wings and bodies, and white belly and legs. They differ in tail colour, with lesser fish eagle having a brown tail, and grey-headed fish eagle having a white tail with a black terminal band, and also in size, with lesser fish eagle only about half of the weight of grey-headed fish eagle.
Contents
Grey headed fish eagle ichthyophaga ichthyaetus by shirishkumar patil mpg
Species
Ecology
As both the common and generic names suggest, both species feed largely on fish, caught mainly in freshwater on lakes and large rivers, but also occasionally in saltwater in estuaries and along coasts.
Synonymy with a parasitic flatworm
Syromiatnikova created in 1949 the genus Ichthyophaga for a prolecithophoran turbellarian parasitic in fish. Because the genus was preoccupied by Ichthyophaga Lesson, 1843, a replacement name, Piscinquilinus, was proposed in 2005 by Sluys & Kawakatsu. Species of turbellarians previously assigned to Ichthyophaga are thus now placed within Piscinquilinus, and Ichthyophaga subcutanea should now be named Piscinquilinus subcutaneus (Syromiatnikova, 1949) Sluys & Kawakatsu, 2005.