The yellow-billed kite is the Afrotropic counterpart of the black kite, of which it is most often considered a subspecies. However, recent DNA studies suggest that the yellow-billed kite differs significantly from black kites in the Eurasian clade, and should be considered as a separate, allopatric species.
Similar species: Diurnal Birds Of Prey
By Oddfeel
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Uploaded Oct 17, 2018. Captured Sep 30, 2018 06:41 in Belon'i Tsiribihina, Madagascar.
comments (10)
Cheers, Arp Posted 6 years ago
(Edit: just saw that you already ID'ed it, my bad!) Posted 6 years ago, modified 6 years ago
Sorry I am a bit lost now...to me aegyptius and parasitus werre clearly different... Posted 6 years ago
The ITIS supports the yellow billed kite as a full species Milvus aegyptius, split from the Black kite, Milvus migrans. Within the yellow-billed, they recognize 2 subspecies, M. a. aegyptius (breeding in Egypt, sw Arabia, and coastal East Africa), and M. a. parasitus (most of sub-saharan Africa and Madagascar).
Some have argued that parasitus and aegyptius should be lumped, resulting in a single yellow-billed taxon, while others still maintain aegyptius and parasitus as subspecies of the black kite (Clements).
Now, both molecular studies that I found (Scheider et al 2004, Johnson et al 2005) found that yellow-billed kites were in fact closer to the red kites! So it would seem that the old classification, with the yellow-billed kites considered as subspecies of the black kite, is not the way to go.
Johnson et al did find that specimens from South Africa and Mada were seemingly quite distinct, but their samples didn't cover enough of the range of the yellow-billed kites to allow a full resolution...
In the case of your photo, for the purpose of JD at least, it's easy. We follow ITIS, so your bird definitely falls under M. aegyptius (parasitus), like other photos that we already have here from South Africa.
But I'm curious, you say that to you aegyptius and parasitus are clearly different. Are you referring to their mutual geographic range and these molecular studies, or do you know something else that I don't? Posted 6 years ago
Here the link
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/17602426
And I must admit the details of the picture leave no doubt...we can clearly see it Posted 6 years ago
And since your bird is from Madagascar, parasitus is correct, aegyptius would have been good for a bird from Egypt or Sudan for example.
Hope that helps? Posted 6 years ago
How exciting Posted 6 years ago