Motmot

Family

Secretarybird

Sagittariidae

1 species with a page on Motmot.

Order: Accipitriformes

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Sagittariidae is a family of raptor with one living species—the secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) native to Africa—and a few fossil taxa. This single extant species has affected the fossil record of the group by ‘pulling’ the temporal range of the family to the present, an artifact called the Pull of the recent. German naturalists Otto Finsch and Gustav Hartlaub established the taxon name as a subfamily—Sagittariinae—in 1870.

Species in this family