Laggar Falcon

Open encyclopedia reference

The laggar falcon (Falco jugger) is a mid-sized bird of prey occurring in the Indian subcontinent from southeastern Iran, southeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, through India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and northwestern Myanmar. It used to be one of the most common falcons in the region, but numbers have declined so that is probably nowhere a common species anymore. The main threats are the intensification of pesticide use and use as a decoy to trap large falcons. Fledglings have an almost entirely dark underside, and first-year subadult birds still retain much dark on the belly. Adults are dark overall and have blackish tibiotarsus feathers. The laggar falcon belongs to a close-knit complex of falcons known as hierofalcons. This group exhibits evidence for rampant hybridization and incomplete lineage sorting which confounds analyses of DNA sequence. The radiation of the hierofalcons has likely taken place in the Eemian interglacial at the start of the Late Pleistocene about 130,000–115,000 years ago.

Wikipedia contributors, Laggar falcon; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T03:28:47.863223+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Falco jugger J. E. Gray, 1834

Name authority

J. E. Gray, 1834

Common name

Laggar Falcon

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Falconiformes

Family

Falconidae

Genus

Falco

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderFalconiformes
10. familyFalconidae Leach, 1820
11. subfamilyFalconinae Leach, 1820
12. genusFalco Linnaeus, 1758
13. speciesFalco jugger J. E. Gray, 1834

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Falco. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 57 records assigned to Falconidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=175642 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3DTG9. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.