Sea eagle (bird)
| Sea eagles Temporal range: Late Eocene to present |
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Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Accipitriformes |
| Family: | Accipitridae |
| Subfamily: | Haliaeetinae |
| Genus: |
Haliaeetus Savigny, 1809 |
| Species | |
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Haliaeetus leucogaster |
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Haliaeetus leucogaster
Haliaeetus sanfordi
Haliaeetus vocifer
Haliaeetus vociferoides
Haliaeetus leucoryphus
Haliaeetus albicilla
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Haliaeetus pelagicus
Haliaeetus humilis
Haliaeetus ichthyaetus
A sea eagle (also called erne or ern, mostly in reference to the white-tailed eagle) is any of the birds of prey in the genus Haliaeetus in the bird of prey family Accipitridae.
Sea eagles vary in size, from Sanford's sea eagle, averaging 2.0–2.7 kg, to the huge Steller's sea eagle, weighing up to 9 kg. At up to 6.9 kg, the white-tailed eagle is the largest eagle in Europe. Bald eagles can weigh up to 7.5 kg, making them the largest eagle native to North America. The white-bellied sea eagle can weigh up to 3.4 kg. Their diets consist mainly of fish and small mammals.
The genus Haliaeetus was introduced in 1809 by the French naturalist Marie Jules César Savigny in his chapter on birds in the Description de l'Égypte. The ten living species are:
Their tails are entirely white in adult Haliaeetus species except Sanford's, white-bellied, and Pallas's. Three species pairs exist: white-tailed and bald eagles, Sanford's and white-bellied sea eagles and the African and Madagascan fish eagles, each of these consists of a white- and a tan-headed species.
Haliaeetus is possibly one of the oldest genera of living birds. A distal left tarsometatarsus (DPC 1652) recovered from early Oligocene deposits of Fayyum, Egypt (Jebel Qatrani Formation, about 33 Mya) is similar in general pattern and some details to that of a modern sea eagle. The genus was present in the middle Miocene (12-16 Mya) with certainty.
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