18 Beautiful Secretary Birds Showing Of Their Incredible Eyelashes

The evolutionary relationship of the secretarybird to other raptors had long puzzled ornithologists. The species was usually placed in its own family Sagittariidae within the order Falconiformes. A large molecular phylogenetic study published in 2008 found that the secretarybird was sister to a clade containing the ospreys in the family Pandionidae and the kites, hawks and eagles in the family Accipitridae. The same study found that the falcons in the order Falconiformes were only distantly related to the other diurnal birds of prey. The families Cathartidae, Sagittariidae, Pandionidae and Accipitridae were therefore moved from Falconiformes to the resurrected Accipitriformes.A later molecular phylogenetic study published in 2015 confirmed these relationships.