First record of Cinereous Vulture Aegypiusmonachus (Falconiformes: Accipitridae)
from southern Rajasthan, India
Deependra Singh Shekhawat 1, Chhaya Bhatnagar 2, Vijay Kumar Koli 3& Sharad Agarwal 4
1,2,3Aquatic Toxicology and
Wildlife Research Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Mohanlal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan 313001, India
4No. 30, Agrasen nagar, Udaipur, Rajasthan
313001, India
1sdeependrasingh@yahoo.com
(corresponding author), 2 bhatnagarchhaya@yahoo.co.in, 3 vijaykoli87@yahoo.in,4 sharadagrawal931978@gmail.com
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3432.5675-6 | ZooBank:urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:57A24416-D373-4FE3-A38E-392472550B67
Editor: Rajiv Kalsi,
M.L.N. College, Haryana, India. Date
of publication: 26 April 2014 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms #
o3432 | Received 12 December 2012 | Final received 04 April 2014 | Finally
accepted 06 April 2014
Citation: Shekhawat,
D.S., C. Bhatnagar, V.K. Koli& S. Agarwal (2014).First record of Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus (Falconiformes:Accipitridae) from southern Rajasthan, India. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 6(4): 5675–5676; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3432.5675-6
Copyright: © Shekhawat et al.2014. Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium,
reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and
the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing Interest: The
authors declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We
thank Dr. Satish Kumar Sharma, Assistant Conservator
of Forest, Udaipur, for his valuable comments on the manuscript.
Cinereous
Vulture Aegypius monachusis a member of the family Accipitridae and order Falconiformes. According to IUCN it has been categorized as
“Near Threatened” (Birdlife International 2013). This species is resident in the high
mountains of Pakistan (Baluchisthan) and in India it
is distributed in Jammu and Kashmir (Gilgit), Punjab
(Lahul), Assam and along the stretch of the Himalayan
dry temperate zone (Ali & Ripley 2001). It is also a rare winter visitor to
Sindh and northern India, Kutch, northern Gujarat and the central part of the
country, and Nepal (Grimmett et al. 1999; Ali &
Ripley 2001).
Ubeshwer (24037’08.04”N & 73033’45.41”E,
elevation 872m) is a famous pilgrimage site located about 15km north-west of
Udaipur City and has lush green vegetation with scanty human presence. On 09 December 2011, we were birding in
the hills of Ubeshwer and we saw two large dark black
vultures at a distance at about 08.08 hr. They were sitting on a large rock (Image 1). Without disturbing them we approached
the birds carefully. At about 60m,
we stopped and observed the birds for about 25 minutes using binoculars (10x50
DPS). We also took photographs with
the help of a Canon SX40 camera for further identification. After 25 minutes of our observation the
birds flew away. The species was
identified as the mature male Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus with the help of Grimmettet al. (1999) and Ali & Ripley (2007). During the observation it was noted that the bird had uniformly black or
blackish-brown body, except for pale areas on the head and bill (Image 1). The female of the same species was
observed on the same site twice on 03 January 2012 and 05 February 2012,
respectively.
The
Cinereous Vulture is a winter visitor to the northern and central part of India
but in the peninsular region it is identified as a vagrant (Rao2006) and its presence has been identified from Andhra Pradesh (Choudhury 1990), Kerala (Kumar 1991) and Karnataka (Subramanya 2001). In Rajasthan State, it is documented from Jodhpur, Bikaner, Bharatpur and Jaisalmer districts
during winter (Chhangani 2009; Kushwaha & Kanaujia 2011;
http://www.kolkatabirds.com/bharatpurlist.html). Many scientists have worked on the avian
fauna (Sharma & Tehsin 1994; Sharma 1998; Chhangani 2002; Saxena 2003; Sangha & Devarshi 2006; Koli et al. 2011; Bhatnagaret al. 2007, 2011, 2013) of the southern part of the state and identified four
species, namely, the Long-billed Vulture, the White-rumpedVulture, the Red-headed Vulture and the Egyptian Vulture. Therefore, the presence of this species
in Udaipur District is a new addition to the bird list of the area.
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