steppe eagle (Aquila nipalensis)
steppe eagle
(Aquila nipalensis)
Mussoorie
Uttarakhand
November 20 20
Nikon Gears
This is a large bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae.[3] The steppe eagle's well-feathered legs illustrate it to be a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as the "booted eagles".
This species was once considered to be closely related to the non-migratory tawny eagle (Aquila rapax) and the two forms have previously been treated as conspecific. They were split based on pronounced differences in morphology and anatomy; two molecular studies, each based on a very small number of genes, indicate that the species are distinct but disagree over how closely related they are.
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