About Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834
The laggar falcon, scientifically named Falco jugger J.E.Gray, 1834, is also called the lugger falcon or jugger. The name jugger comes from the Hindi word jaggar (जग्गर), which means "falcon". This is a mid-sized bird of prey found in the Indian subcontinent, ranging from extreme southeastern Iran and southeastern Afghanistan through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh to northwestern Myanmar. It looks similar to the lanner falcon, but is darker overall, and has blackish feathers on its tibiotarsus, which are referred to as "trousers". Fledgling laggar falcons have an almost completely dark underside, and first-year subadults still keep a large amount of dark coloring on their bellies. This species is part of a closely related group of falcons called the hierofalcon complex. Within this group, there is strong evidence of widespread hybridization and incomplete lineage sorting. These factors greatly complicate analysis of DNA sequence data, and molecular studies using small sample sizes cannot produce reliable results for the entire hierofalcon group. The radiation that produced all the current living diversity of hierofalcons appears to have occurred during the Eemian interglacial, at the start of the Late Pleistocene, between just 130,000 and 115,000 years ago. The laggar falcon's lineage reached its current distribution from eastern Africa by traveling through the Arabian Peninsula, which had a more humid climate at that time than it does today. Laggar falcons were once the most common falcon species in this region, but their population has dropped sharply in recent years, and the species is now unlikely to be common anywhere in its range. The main threats to the species are increased pesticide use across the region, and its use as a decoy to trap larger falcons.
