Lanner Falcon - Taxonomy and Systematics

Taxonomy and Systematics

The Lanner Falcon is a bird of open country and savanna. It usually hunts by horizontal pursuit, rather than the Peregrine Falcon's stoop from a height, and takes mainly bird prey in flight. It lays 3-4 eggs on a cliff ledge nest, or occasionally in an old stick nest in a tree.

This is presumably the oldest living hierofalcon species. Support for this assumption comes mainly from biogeography agreeing better with the confusing pattern of DNA sequence data in this case than in others. Nonetheless, there is rampant hybridization (see also Perilanner) and incomplete lineage sorting which confounds the data to a massive extent; molecular studies with small sample sizes can simply not be expected to yield reliable conclusions in the entire hierofalcon group. In any case, the radiation of the entire living diversity of hierofalcons seems to have taken place in the Eemian interglacial at the start of the Late Pleistocene, a mere 130,000-115,000 years ago; the Lanner Falcons would thus represent the lineage that became isolated in sub-Saharan Africa at some time during the Riss glaciation (200,000 to 130,000 years ago) already.

They are bred in captivity for falconry; hybrids with the Peregrine ("perilanners") are also often seen. Merret (1666) claimed that the "lanar" lived in Sherwood Forest and the Forest of Dean in England; such populations would seem to derive from escaped hunting birds of the nobility.

In the wild Lanner Falcon numbers are somewhat declining in Europe, though the species remains relatively common in parts of Africa.

Jackdaw flocks are targets of coordinated hunting by pairs of Lanner Falcons, although larger flocks are more able to elude becoming prey.

• Painting by John Gerrard Keulemans (1884)

• Eagle Encounters, South Africa

• Adult Falco biarmicus biarmicus, Etosha National Park, Namibia.

• A falconer's Lanner in a dive. Note distinct head coloration.

• Juvenile, probably F. b. feldeggi. Note blue facial skin and overall similarity to Saker Falcon.

• A Gyrfalcon's head showing the "twice-armed" falcon bill (number 2).