Falco newtoni
The Malagasy kestrel, also known as the Madagascar kestrel, Malagasy spotted kestrel, Newton's kestrel, Madagascar spotted kestrel, katiti (Creole) or hitsikitsika (Malagasy), is a small bird of prey of the genus Falco. It is named after British ornithologist Edward Newton. It occurs in two subspecies on Madagascar and at Aldabra. The race from Aldabra is also called Aldabra kestrel. Its closest living relative is the Seychelles kestrel; they were at one time considered conspecific. Their common ancestors appear to have diverged very recently, probably less than 1 million years ago during the Early or Middle Pleistocene. The Mauritius kestrel is more distantly related.

DickDaniels ( http://theworldbirds.org/ ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Madagascar kestrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- FalcoPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Falconidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae
- Mass
- 105 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Falco newtoni on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3 occurrences- Holocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Falco newtoni and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Falco newtoni and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
95 taxa- Coracopsis vasa3 sites
- Foudia madagascariensis3 sites
- Numida meleagris3 sites
- Otus rutilus3 sites
- Turnix nigricollis3 sites
- Tyto alba3 sites
- Buteo brachypterus2 sites
- Coua berthae2 sites
- Coua cristata2 sites
- Mullerornis2 sites
- Ploceus sakalava2 sites
- Streptopelia picturata2 sites
- Accipiter henstii1 site
- Accipitridae1 site
- Acrantophis1 site
- Aldabrachelys1 site
- Alopochen sirabensis1 site
- Anas1 site
- Apus1 site
- Apus balstoni1 site
- Archaeolemur majori1 site
- Ardea humbloti1 site
- Artamella viridis1 site
- Athene superciliaris1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Falco newtoni, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
3 references- Subfossil birds from a submerged cave in southwestern Madagascar1
- New findings at Andrahomana Cave, southeastern Madagascar1
- Identification of bird subfossils from cave surface deposits at Anjohibe, Madagascar, with a description of a new giant Coua (Cuculidae: Couinae)1
Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Falco newtoni
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- DickDaniels ( http://theworldbirds.org/ )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Falco newtoni was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itFalco through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gurney 1863)