What family does Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834 belong to?

Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834 (Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834) belongs to the family Falconidae, order Falconiformes, in the kingdom Animalia. You can identify it offline using the iNature app.

Can I identify Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834 without internet?

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How to Identify Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834 | Species ID Guide

Q: How to identify Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834?

Falco jugger, the laggar falcon, is a mid-sized hierofalcon of the Indian subcontinent with declining populations.

About Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834

Common Names and Etymology

The laggar falcon, scientifically named Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834, is also called the lugger falcon or jugger. The name jugger comes from the Hindi word jaggar (जग्गर), which means "falcon".

Size and Distribution

This is a mid-sized bird of prey found in the Indian subcontinent, ranging from extreme southeastern Iran and southeastern Afghanistan through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh to northwestern Myanmar.

Adult Plumage

It looks similar to the lanner falcon, but is darker overall, and has blackish feathers on its tibiotarsus, which are referred to as "trousers".

Juvenile and Subadult Plumage

Fledgling laggar falcons have an almost completely dark underside, and first-year subadults still keep a large amount of dark coloring on their bellies.

Taxonomic Placement

This species is part of a closely related group of falcons called the hierofalcon complex. Within this group, there is strong evidence of widespread hybridization and incomplete lineage sorting.

Molecular Analysis Challenges

These factors greatly complicate analysis of DNA sequence data, and molecular studies using small sample sizes cannot produce reliable results for the entire hierofalcon group.

Hierofalcon Radiation Timeline

The radiation that produced all the current living diversity of hierofalcons appears to have occurred during the Eemian interglacial, at the start of the Late Pleistocene, between just 130,000 and 115,000 years ago.

Colonization Route

The laggar falcon's lineage reached its current distribution from eastern Africa by traveling through the Arabian Peninsula, which had a more humid climate at that time than it does today.

Population Trend

Laggar falcons were once the most common falcon species in this region, but their population has dropped sharply in recent years, and the species is now unlikely to be common anywhere in its range.