Has the Australian Endemic Grey Falcon the Most Extreme Dietary Specialization among all Falco Species?

ABSTRACT: A clear understanding of a species' diet is crucial in understanding its spatio-temporal dynamics, and is, therefore, pertinent to conservation considerations. The diet of the Grey Falcon (Falco hypoleucos), a rare and threatened predator endemic to the Australian arid and semi-arid zone, is subject to diverging assertions; therefore, we studied its diet through direct observation of food ingestion during more than 17 years of fieldwork across the species' distribution. We found that Grey Falcons of all ages fed almost exclusively on a single type of food, namely, birds, and non-avian food items never constituted a substantial portion of any individual's diet. The extraordinary circumstances that were associated with the ingestion of non-avian food suggest strongly that, across its

SUBMITTER: Schoenjahn J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9219490 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature