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Harpy Eagle | Harpia harpyja
Harpij | Águila arpía
The Harpy Eagle is the heaviest bird of prey of the American tropics: a large forest eagle with a grey head with a divided crest, a broad black breast band and very thick legs with a hind talon of about 12 cm. It hunts in the canopy mainly for sloths and monkeys, and also for porcupines, coatis and large birds. In the guide area it is a rare resident of large, undisturbed rainforest; most of the population lives in Darién in eastern Panama, and further north it has become very scarce.
Voice
Mostly silent. Near the nest a long, wailing, high call, weeeee-oo; young birds beg for long periods with a high, squeaky kwee-kwee.
Recording: Felipe Arantes — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
89–105 cm. Adults have a pale grey head with a dark, divided crest that can be raised, a black breast band and white underparts with finely barred thighs. The upperparts are slate grey to blackish; the tail is long, with three or four broad grey bands. The bill is black, the legs yellow and very thick. In flight the wings are short and broad, white below with black-barred flight feathers. Young birds are much paler, with a white head and underparts and pale grey upperparts; adult plumage is reached only after four to five years. Male and female are alike; the female is clearly larger and can be almost twice as heavy.
Confusion species
The Crested Eagle Morphnus guianensis is smaller and slimmer, with thinner legs, a single-pointed crest and a grey rather than black breast; young birds of the two species look very similar, but the young Harpy Eagle is bulkier, with thicker legs, a shorter tail and a divided crest. The Black-and-white Hawk-Eagle Spizaetus melanoleucus and the young Ornate Hawk-Eagle Spizaetus ornatus are much smaller, have legs feathered to the toes and no breast band.
Habitat
Large, continuous humid lowland rainforest and foothill forest, mainly below 900 m, also the Darién rainforest and gallery forest. It nests in the crown of the tallest trees, often a kapok or another emergent tree; a pair raises at most one young every two to three years. It hunts from a perch in the canopy and rarely flies high above the forest.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Resident from southern Mexico to Panama, but very rare in most of that area. In Mexico only scattered records remain from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Veracruz; in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras (Mosquitia), Nicaragua and Costa Rica rare and local, mainly in large forest tracts on the Caribbean side. In Panama mainly in Darién and also in large forests further west. Extirpated from El Salvador. Outside the guide area in tropical South America to northeastern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is in Darién in Panama, where local guides take visitors to known nest trees; a young bird stays near the nest for months after fledging. Elsewhere in the guide area a sighting is exceptional.
Conservation status
Vulnerable. The species is declining through deforestation, which fragments its habitat, and through shooting, to which its slow reproduction makes it very sensitive. In the north of the guide area it has largely disappeared; captive-bred birds have been released in Belize and Panama.
Scientific name
Harpia harpyja | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Vultur Harpyja; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Harpia was introduced in 1816 by Vieillot. Harpia comes from the Greek harpuia 'harpy', a mythical predatory monster with a bird's body and a woman's face. harpyja is the Latinised form of the Greek harpuia 'harpy', the mythical bird-bodied predatory monster. The specimen the first description was based on came from Mexico.