CreatureData

Mountain caracara

Phalcoboenus megalopterus (Meyen, 1834)

LCLeast Concernbirds of prey

The mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus) is a species in the family Falconidae, order Falconiformes. Recorded adults weigh 788 g to 795 g. Its IUCN Red List status is Least Concern.

Mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus)
Photo: Julia Manzerova from the Bronx, United States · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Quick facts about the mountain caracara

Weight
788 gsrc for Weight
Length
Not recorded
Wingspan
1.11 m – 1.24 msrc for Wingspan
Lifespan
Not recorded
Diet
Omnivoresrc for Diet
Main food
Not recorded
Habitat
grasslandsrc for Habitat
Young per litter or clutch
2src for Young per litter or clutch
Lifestyle
Terrestrialsrc for Lifestyle
Migration
Sedentarysrc for Migration
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN)src for Conservation status
Countries on record
Not recorded

How big is the mountain caracara?

MOUNTAIN CARACARA · WINGSPAN 1.24 MADULT HUMAN · HEIGHT 1.7 M
At 1.24 m, the recorded maximum wingspan of the mountain caracara is about 73% of the height of an adult human (1.7 m, a fixed reference used for scale).

Where does the mountain caracara live?

Not recorded

What is the mountain caracara?

Quoted from WikipediaCC BY-SA 4.0

The mountain caracara (Daptrius megalopterus), (Spanish: corequenque) is a species of bird of prey in the family Falconidae. It is found in puna and páramo in the Andes, ranging from northern Ecuador, through Peru and Bolivia, to northern Argentina and Chile. It is generally uncommon to fairly common. It resembles the closely related carunculated caracara and white-throated caracara, but unlike those species, its chest is uniform black. Juveniles are far less distinctive than the red-faced pied adults, being overall brown with dull pinkish-grey facial skin.

From the Wikipedia article “Mountain caracara” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mountain_caracara&oldid=1374207129), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.

Is the mountain caracara endangered?

The mountain caracara is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List: it is not currently at risk of extinction.

  1. LCLeast Concern
  2. NTNear Threatened
  3. VUVulnerable
  4. ENEndangered
  5. CRCritically Endangered
  6. EWExtinct in the Wild
  7. EXExtinct

Category via Wikidata (CC0). Find the full assessment on the IUCN Red List. See all Least Concern species. What the categories mean.

How is the mountain caracara classified?

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. phylumChordata
  3. classAves
  4. orderFalconiformes
  5. familyFalconidae
  6. genusPhalcoboenus
  7. SpeciesPhalcoboenus megalopterus (Meyen, 1834)

Synonyms Aquila megaloptera, Daptrius megalopterus, Phalcoboenus megalopterus megalopterus, Phalcoboenus montanus, Polyborus megalopterus

Other names and names in other languages (30)
  • caracarà dels AndesCatalan
  • čimango horskýCzech
  • caracara mynyddWelsh
  • AndescaracaraDanish
  • BergkarakaraGerman
  • Berg-KarakaraGerman
  • monta karakaroEsperanto
  • Caracara andinoSpanish
  • Matamico andinoSpanish
  • mägikarakaaraEstonian
  • inkakarakaraFinnish
  • Caracara montagnardFrench
  • קרקרת ההריםHebrew
  • andska karakaraCroatian
  • hegyi karakaraHungarian
  • Caracara montanoItalian
  • アンデスカラカラJapanese
  • kalninė karakaraLithuanian
  • fjellkarakaraNorwegian
  • karakara andyjskaPolish
  • carcará-andinoPortuguese
  • caracara-andinoPortuguese
  • AlqamariQuechua
  • Горная каракараRussian
  • karakara vrchovskáSlovak
  • Planinska karakaraSerbian
  • And KarakarasıTurkish
  • каракара андійськаUkrainian
  • 山卡拉鷹Chinese
  • 山地巨隼Chinese

Catalogue of LifeWikipediaWikidataIUCN Red List

Relatives of the mountain caracara

Other species in the same genus Phalcoboenus.

CompareMountain caracara vs Striated caracaraMountain caracara vs Carunculated caracaraMountain caracara vs White-throated caracara

Common questions

Answered only where our data holds the answer.

How big is the mountain caracara?

An adult mountain caracara weighs 788 g and has a wingspan of 1.11 m – 1.24 m, according to values recorded on Wikidata.

Is the mountain caracara endangered?

The mountain caracara is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, meaning it is not currently at risk of extinction.

What kind of animal is the mountain caracara?

The mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus) belongs to the family Falconidae in the order Falconiformes.

Sources and how to cite this page

Data as of 2026-11-11. How this page is put together.

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APA

CreatureData. (2026). Mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/mountain-caracara

MLA

“Mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/mountain-caracara.

BibTeX
@misc{mountain_caracara_2026,
  title = {Mountain caracara (Phalcoboenus megalopterus)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/mountain-caracara},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}