Zone-tailed Hawk

The zone-tailed hawk (Buteo albonotatus) is a medium-sized hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to a common scavenger, the turkey vulture, and may benefit from being able to blend into groups of vultures. It feeds on small terrestrial tetrapods of all kinds. == Taxonomy == In 1844, the English zoologist George Robert Gray, in his List of the Specimens of Birds in the Collection of the British Museum, mentioned the zone-tailed hawk under the common name "white spotted buzzard" and coined the binomial name Buteo albonotatus. As Gray omitted a species description, his binomial name is considered nomen nudum, a naked name, and is not recognised. Instead, the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup is recognised as the authority as in 1847, he provided a brief description and used Gray's name Buteo albonotatus. The type locality is Mexico. The specific epithet albonotatus combines the Latin albus meaning "white" with notatus meaning "marked". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. == Description == The zone-tailed hawk is a fairly large but slender Buteo hawk. Grown birds are 46 to 56 cm (18 to 22 in) in length with a wingspan…