Harpy Eagle/ About American and Papuan Harpy Eagle

 Harpy Eagle

About American and Papuan Harpy Eagle

Harpy eagle is one of the largest bird of prey. Two kinds of harpy eagles are found in the world-American harpy eagle (Harpia Harpyja) and Papuan harpy eagle (Harpyopsis novaeguineae). Harpy eagle is the largest and most powerful eagle. They are found mainly in the tropical forests of South America and the South Pacific. In Brazil, the harpy eagle is called the royal hawk.

Golden Eagle

Size of Eagles

What Do Eagles Eat

American Harpy Eagle

Class: Aves

Order: Accipitriformes

Family: Accipitridae

Subfamily: Harpiinae

Genus: Harpia

Species: H. harpyja

American harpy eagle is one of the largest bird of prey. It belongs to Accipitridae family and scientific name is Harpia Harpyja. The words harpyja and harpy come from Ancient Greek “harpya”. The harpy eagle gets its name from the harpy of Greek mythology, which was terrifying, malign beast and had a body like bird and face of woman who was the wind spirit and took the dead to Hades. Harpy Eagle is the national bird and cost of arms of Panama. Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, zoologist and taxonomist first described the Harpy Eagle in his 1758 book Systema Naturae as Vultur harpyja.

Description of American Harpy Eagle

Harpy eagle’s body is covered with slate-black feathers but chest and belly parts are white. It has a wide black chest band that separate its head and body. Its head is grey in color and has a double crest crown. Its long tail has three grey bands on upper side and three white bands underside. Its long legs are covered with white feathers with black stripes while its feet are yellow. Its hooked, carved long beak is black.

The female Harpy eagle is almost double in size that of the male. They can grow between 89cm and 100cm in length. Male Harpy eagle weighs 4 to 6kg while female Harpy eagle weighs 6kg to 9kg. A captive female Harpy eagle “Jezebel”, weighed 12.3kg. Harpy eagles measure 41 inches (105 cm) in height. The wingspan of the Harpy eagle can be 175cm to 225cm and their wing chord is 54cm to 63cm long. Their tail is 37cm to 42cm long and tarsus is 11.5cm to 13cm long. The length of its tarsi is 12cm to 13cm long. Its sharp, thick back talons are 13cm long. The adult happy eagle talon is about 5 inches (13 cm) in length while a grizzly bear’s front claw just 2-4 inches. It can exert more than 110 pounds (50 kg) of pressure to quickly crush its prey bones.

Its eyeball is almost identical to the shape of the human eye and its eye has two focal points called “foveae” which allow them to look straight ahead and to the side. They can see their prey at more than three miles away. They able to distinguish more colors than humans and can see the UV range of light. They have upper and lower eyelids and also a translucent nictitating membrane, known as the “third eyelid” which blinks every 4 to 5 seconds horizontally across the eyes to provide moisture and protection and cleans the eyes from dirt and dust. Their excellent vision helps them to spot a bird or monkey nearly 220 yards (200 m) away.

Harpy eagle basically silent type bird and do not vocalize much. Their calls are croak, whistle, click, mew or wail.

Harpy eagles can live 25 to 35 years in the wild.

Where Do Harpy Eagles Live?

Harpy eagles live in rainforests and inhabits tropical lowland rainforests in the upper canopy layer. Small population of harpy eagle found in Mexico and Central America. They mainly live in Brazil. This species is nearly extinct in Central America, except in some areas of Panama. The destruction of its natural habitat due to logging is one of the reasons of their extinction from many parts of its former range. They avoid disturbed areas and are usually below 900m height. They are found flying on cerrados, caatingds, cultivated fields and also cities. They like to spend time in forest canopy. Harpy eagles live in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Bolivia etc. In 2012, harpy eagle was placed in the “Near Threatened” group by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Where Do Harpy Eagles Live?

Harpy eagle is at the top of the food chain. Harpy eagle’s main prey are sloths and monkeys. They prefer to hunt and eat capuchin monkey, howler monkeys, tit monkeys, spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys etc. but they ignore the smaller species of monkeys such as tamarins and marmosets. Harpy eagles also eat squirrels, opossums, porcupine, armadillos, anteaters, tayras, coatis, and agouti.

Harpy eagles eat bird species such as macaws, specially red and green macaws, parrots, curassows, seriemas etc. Harpy eagles eat reptiles such as iguanas, snakes, tegus.

Harpy eagles rarely hunt domestic livestock such as lambs, goats, chickens or pigs but this is extremely rare under normal circumstances.

How Do Harpy Eagles Hunt

Harpy eagle has long sharp talons about 3 to 4 inches long which are as same as a grizzly bear’s claws size.

Their large talons which are the largest of any other living eagle, help them to lift prey up to equal their own body weight. Male harpy eagles hunt smaller prey, range of 0.5 to 2.5kg but the larger female harpy eagles regularly hunt large prey such as male howler, spider monkey, adult sloths. Without landing, female harpy eagle can fly with the larger prey that weighing between 6 and 9kg. Male harpy eagle can bring an average of 3kg of prey to their nest while female harpy eagle bring 3.2kg because female harpy eagle is almost double in size than male.

It dives down onto its prey with the speed of 50 miles per hour and snatches it with outstretched feet. The bird sits quietly for 23 hours on a tree or on a top place and waiting patiently to catch the prey. Harpy eagles can turn their head upside down to get a better look at their potential food. It has great vision that helps it to see anything less than 1 inch in size from about 220 yards away. Their sharp, powerful, deadly talons can crush the bones of its prey and instantly kill its victim.

Reproduction of Harpy Eagle

Harpy eagles are monogamous and form breeding pairs that last a lifelong. The male and female both build their nest together. They choose the tall tree, high above the forest floor to build their nest. They prefer kapok tree which is one of the tallest tree in South America to build their nest. They also choose the huge Brazil nut tree to build their nest. They prefer to build nest 27m to 43m above the ground.

Harpy couple do not have a courtship display before mating and meet many times over a period of a few days. Their breeding season starts in April or May. They use sticks, soft vegetation and animal fur. Their large nest is 1.2m thick and 1.5m across and reuse the nest every year.

The female harpy eagle lays two white eggs in a clutch and reproduces every 2 to 3 years. Both incubate eggs for 56 days. When the first eaglet hatches, the second egg is ignored, so the second egg dies. If something wrong with the first egg, the parents incubate the second egg. Both parents bring food for their chick for about 10 months. Male harpy eagle brings much food for incubating female and later their eaglet. When the chick is 5 to 6 months of age, it is ready to fledge but is found hanging around the nest for a year begging for food from the parents. When it reaches 4 to 6 years of age, it becomes breeding mature. Harpy eagles can breed from 5 to 30 years of age or over.

Parents fiercely defend their eggs and eaglet and can be aggressive towards humans or predators who disturb the nesting site or their young.

Threat and Conservation of Harpy Eagle

In 2012, harpy eagle was placed in the “Near Threatened” group by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is threatened because of habitat loss due to the expansion of logging, cattle ranching, agriculture, and prospecting.

Harpy eagle build their nests on the tall trees but commercially these trees are valuable so the trees are gradually being cut down so the harpy eagles lose their nesting places that leading their population decline. The hunters kill the harpy eagles for trophy gathering and protecting livestock. They are captured or killed for their ornate plumage. They are killed because the people think that they usually hunt medium-sized animals so the birds may be hunt their livestock. But the harpy eagle only hunt tree-dwelling animals from the tree branches in the forest, not open grazing land.

Once harpy eagles were found from Mexico to northern Argentina, but now they are mostly found in the Amazon. Their numbers decreases for deforestation from mining, development. In early 2020, every hour 136 acres of jungle were cut down in the Brazilian Amazon so the birds lose their habitat and food.

Papuan Harpy Eagle

Papuan Harpy eagle also known as New Guinea eagle or kapul eagle. It is a native species of New Guinea. They are found in mature rainforests. Papuan harpy eagle is also a large raptor. Female is larger than male. Papuan eagles range in length from 75 to 90 cm and weight is 1.6kg to 2.4kg. They have long tails, the length of tail of male bird is about 384mm to 394mm and female has 410mm to 435mm.Their body is covered with greyish brown feathers but underside is pale white or cream color. On the tip of its tail has 4 to 5 black bands. Their wide wingspan is 121 to 157 cm and the wing chord measures 368 to 442 mm in males and 450 to 494 mm in female Papuan harpy eagle. Their beak is black in color and about 48mm in length. Their legs have no feathers and brownish-grey to dull orange colour.

Papuan harpy eagle like to hunt and eat phalangers, tree-kangaroos, common ringtail possums, Dorcopsis and Dorcopsulus, woolly rats and giant naked-tailed rats. Phalangers or Kapul are often considered the most important prey. The Papuan harpy eagle is an opportunistic predator and usually hunt a wide range of birds such as pigeons and doves, hornbills, cockatoos, megapodes and cassowaries. They also hunt reptiles for food such as snakes and monitor lizards. The Papuan harpy Eagle is known to hunt small dogs and young pigs. they target the prey weighing 0.5 to 1kg but they hunt a Matschie's tree-kangaroo weighing 6 kg and dwarf cassowary weighing about 13.5 kg have also been recorded.

Little is known about breeding or pairing behavior in Papuan harpy eagles. Probably forms stable breeding pairs. They prefer to build their nests on Eugenia, Syzygium and Aglaia. Papuan harpy Eagle nests are huge, up to 3 meters in both height and diameter. Some evidence suggests that they may lay only a single egg and breed every other year.

Papuan harpy eagles are threatened due to deforestation and hunting. They are hunted for their feathers that are used in ceremonies on occasion. These feathers were historically known as high value property. The Papuan harpy eagle is evaluated as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Are Harpy Eagle dangerous?

Harpy eagle has sharp talons, around 3cm to 4cm long. The female is larger than male bird and its feet is as large asa human palm. Their strong claws can carry upto 3.2kg of prey. Harpy eagles are dangerous for tree-dwelling animals like sloths and monkeys. The harpy eagles hunt these animals for food but they do not hunt from open grazing land and not harmful for human but they become aggressive when the human come close to their nest or breeding site. Hardy Eagle is not friendly at all.

 

How tall is a Harpy Eagle?

The American harpy eagle is one of the largest and most powerful extant species in the world. The female Harpy eagle is almost double in size that of the male. They can grow between 89cm and 100cm in length. Male Harpy eagle weighs 4 to 6kg while female Harpy eagle weighs 6kg to 9kg.

Papuan eagles range in length from 75 to 90 cm and weight is 1.6kg to 2.4kg.

 

Are Harpy Eagles endangered?

Harpy eagle was placed in the “Near Threatened” group by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

 

How powerful is a Harpy Eagle?

Male harpy eagles hunt smaller prey, range of 0.5 to 2.5kg but the larger female harpy eagles regularly hunt large prey such as male howler, spider monkey, adult sloths. They are so strong that without landing, female harpy eagle can fly with the larger prey that weighing between 6 and 9kg. Their sharp, powerful, deadly talons can exert more than 110 pounds (50 kg) of pressure to crush the bones of its prey and instantly kill its victim.

Do Harpy Eagles have good eyesight?

Harpy eagle has great vision that helps it to see anything less than 1 inch in size from about 220 yards away. Its eyeball is almost identical to the shape of the human eye. They can see their prey at more than three miles away. They able to distinguish more colors than humans and can see the UV range of light.