nesting attempt was abandoned when heavy rains recommenced. The scant other data agrees with this, and at least in Central America the nesting season seems to run from March to June or so. There is a general lack of information on the black-and-white hawk-eagle's movements and population status. Each bird seems to require a hunting territory of about at least. While the variety of habitat types in which it is found suggests that it is not particularly susceptible to changes in land use, it is apparently still a rare and local species almost anywhere in its range. The IUCN until 2000 classified it as a Near Threatened species due to the uncertainties surrounding its status, but as no evidence of a marked decline has been found and as the bird is found across a wide range, it was downlisted to a Species of Least Concern. Taxonomy and systematics This species is often placed in the monotypic genus Spizastur, but has recently been moved to Spizaetus e.g. by the American Ornithologists' Union, as it appears that the ornate hawk-eagle (S. ornatus) is its sister taxon. This has created quite some taxonomic confusion, which has largely gone unnoticed however: Originally, the name Spizaetus melanoleucus was given by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot to the black-chested buzzard-eagle in 1819, while the black-and-white hawk-eagle had been described in 1816 by the very same scientist as Buteo melanoleucus. The former species was placed in Geranoaetus – also a monotypic genus – in 1844, while the black-and-white hawk-eagle had been moved out of Buteo and into Spizastur a few years earlier. Thus, the identical specific epithets never came into direct conflict until recently. But the black-chested eagle-buzzard's placement in a monotypic genus was always disputed, and several authors treated it in Buteo. However, they overlooked that Buteo melanoleucus was the original name of the black-and-white hawk-eagle and thus as a senior homonym could not be applied to the later-described species. The correct specific name for the black-chested eagle-buzzard when placed in Buteo, Buteo fuscescens, was reestablished in the mid-20th century for a short time more by accident than anything else; as most late-20th-century researchers argued for retaining Geranoaetus, this name was dismissed as erroneous and essentially forgotten. As the black-and-white hawk-eagle has not been placed in Buteo since long, Article 59.3 of the ICZN Code applies. According to this, a junior homonym replaced before 1961 is not