Aerospiza Explained

Aerospiza is a genus containing goshawks and a sparrowhawk in the family Accipitridae that are found in Africa. The three species in the genus were formerly placed in the genus Accipiter.

Taxonomy

The genus Aerospiza was introduced in 1922 by the South African zoologist Austin Roberts with Falco tachio, Daudin, 1800 (the African goshawk) as the type species.^{[1] [2]} The name combines the Ancient Greek αηρ (aēr), αερος (aeros) meaning "air" with σπιζιας (spizias) meaning "hawk".^[3] Species now placed in this genus were formerly assigned to the genus Accipiter. Molecular phylogenetic studies found that Accipiter was polyphyletic and in the subsequently rearrangement to create monophyletic genera, the genus Aerospiza was resurrected to contain three species that were previously placed in Accipiter.^{[4] [5]}

The genus contains 3 species:^[5]

Notes and References

1. Roberts . Austin . Austin Roberts (zoologist) . 1922 . Review of the nomenclature of South African birds . Annals of the Transvaal Museum . 8 . 4 . 187-272 [208] .
2. Sangster . G. . Kirwan . G.M. . Fuchs . J. . Dickinson . E.C. . Elliott . A. . Gregory . S.M.S. . 2021 . A new genus for the tiny hawk Accipiter superciliosus and semicollared hawk A. collaris (Aves: Accipitridae), with comments on the generic name for the crested goshawk A. trivirgatus and Sulawesi goshawk A. griseiceps . Vertebrate Zoology . 71 . 419–424 . 10.3897/vz.71.e67501 . free .
3. Web site: Jobling . James A. . Aerospiza . The Key to Scientific Names . Cornell Lab of Ornithology . 22 August 2024 .
4. Catanach . T.A. . Halley . M.R. . Pirro . S. . 2024 . Enigmas no longer: using ultraconserved elements to place several unusual hawk taxa and address the non-monophyly of the genus Accipiter (Accipitriformes: Accipitridae) . Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . blae028 . 10.1093/biolinnean/blae028.
5. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . Rasmussen . Pamela . Pamela C. Rasmussen . August 2024 . Hoatzin, New World vultures, Secretarybird, raptors . IOC World Bird List Version 14.2 . International Ornithologists' Union . 21 August 2024 .