Cuban kite

Cuban kite
Conservation status
Critically Endangered  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Accipitriformes
Family:	Accipitridae
Genus:	Chondrohierax
Species:	C. wilsonii
Binomial name
Chondrohierax wilsonii (Cassin, 1847)

The Cuban kite (Chondrohierax wilsonii) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as kites, eagles and harriers. It is endemic to Cuba.

This species is classified as critically endangered by BirdLife International. The current population is estimated 50 to 249 mature birds. After a last confirmed sighting in 2001 and an unconfirmed sighting in 2004 Cuban ornithologist Nils Navarro Pacheco took a photograph of one individual in 2009.

The Clements Checklist and the AOU consider it as subspecies of the hook-billed kite. A molecular phylogenetics analysis using mitochondrial DNA suggests that it warrants species status having diverged from the mainland lineage approximately 400,000 to 1.5 million years ago.^[2]

References

1. BirdLife International (2013). "Chondrohierax wilsonii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
2. Johnson, Jeff A.; Thorstrom, Russell; Mindell, David P. (2007). "Systematics and conservation of the hook-billed kite including the island taxa from Cuba and Grenada" (PDF). Animal Conservation 10: 349–359. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1795.2007.00118.x.

External links

• BirdLife Species Factsheet
• BEX recipients photograph a Cuban Kite (Chondroierax wilsonii)
• Global Raptor Information Network species account