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1 January 2020 Prey Composition of Harpy Eagles (Harpia harpyja) in Raleighvallen, Suriname
Everton B. P. Miranda
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Abstract

Apex predators are in widespread decline, in many occasions as a consequence of the demise of their prey. Harpy Eagles (Harpia harpyja) are the largest extant eagles on Earth and keystone predators in the tropical forests they inhabit. Although Harpy Eagle prey composition has been described by a number of studies, diet data from primary forests are rare on the literature. Here, I describe the diet of Harpy Eagles living in the Central Suriname Reserve primary forests and review literature data to provide an accessible reference to all known reports of Harpy Eagle prey species. In Central Suriname Nature Reserve, Harpy Eagles made frequent use of game prey such as large primates, large birds, and terrestrial animals, besides what is considered their staple prey, sloths. Nine new prey species were recorded, most of them game animals. This totals 102 prey species when summed with literature data. This information provides new insights into the autecology of Harpy Eagles in Neotropical forests, enabling a better understanding of the ecological effects of apex predator.

© The Author(s) 2018 Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Everton B. P. Miranda "Prey Composition of Harpy Eagles (Harpia harpyja) in Raleighvallen, Suriname," Tropical Conservation Science 11(1), (1 January 2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/1940082918800789
Received: 3 June 2018; Accepted: 24 August 2018; Published: 1 January 2020
KEYWORDS
aerial predator
apex predator
Canopy
nonhunted forest
primary forest
primate predation
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