Title
Incidence of Cartwheeling Flights in Raptors of South-Central Chile
Author(s)
Raimilla, V.;Rivas-Fuenzalida, T.;Kusch, A.;Díaz, J.;Toledo, J.;García, A.;Jiménez, J.E.
Published
2015
Publisher
The Wilson Journal of Ornithology
Abstract
Cartwheeling flight is a behavior that involves aerial locking of talons by raptors followed by a descending mutual rotation around a central axis, like a cartwheel. We provide information on 32 recorded cartwheeling events from south-central Chile involving 12 raptor species; 26 were by dyads of the same species, of which 61.5% were associated with aggressive events. Only one case was considered a courtship behavior and two as play. Milvago chimango was the most frequently involved in intraspecific cartwheeling (38.5%), whereas Geranoaetus polyosoma had the highest frequency of allospecific encounters (67%). This is the first account on the occurrence of cartwheeling flights in South American raptors, and we suspect that this behavior is more prevalent than has been reported previously.
Keywords
aggression;agonistic behavior;Chile;Geranoaetus polyosoma;Milvago chimango;raptors;talon-grappling

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PUB15679