[Population] The Coolest Bird of Prey: Secretarybirds

It is time for our second Action Project in this term! In this unit, we've been learning about evolution and how organisms got to how they are now. We started by reading about Charles Darwin, who is credited with coming up with the theory of evolution. We read a few chapters from his book On the Origin of Species. We read about Natural Selection and Artificial Selection. We then went to a DNA Lab called Tempus and learned about how they take cancer cells from patients and study them to figure out exactly what kind of cancer they have, what similar people with similar cancers in the past have experienced, and what the best course of treatment would be. We then learned about Standard Deviation and Variance which are used in graphs to see how rare an occurrence is. After that, we picked an animal to research, similar to the last unit. This time, I picked the Secretarybird. We did a little bit of research and then went to The Field Museum to research the animal and its relatives. This paper is the results of our research.

"Secretarybird (Sekretär)" by RaKra42 is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit link

I chose the Secretarybird, or Sagittarius serpentarius, because it was an animal that really interested me. It is the only Bird of Prey that hunts on the ground running with legs rather than flying in the sky and grabbing prey. The secretary bird is the only living species of the Sagittarius genus. It is closely related to some other birds of prey, the closest being Pandion (Ospreys) and Accipitridae (Kites, Hawks, and Eagles). The secretary bird has a recent common ancestor with Ospreys and Accipitridae, so at some point, it most likely was a smaller more aerodynamic bird of prey. Living in the African savannah, it evolved longer legs and a long neck and is now much more built for running. This is a species called Apatosagittarius terrenus. That roughly translates to "false secretarybird." They are fairly similar in morphology but it was found in Nebraska. They are somewhat closely related although they mostly look similar by coincidence. It developed similar hunting techniques to the secretary bird as well, preferring to run rather than fly.

Apokryltaros, 24 December 2019, 05:51:30, link

Over the course of this unit, we created some questions to follow:
1. Why does the Secretarybird only inhabit Africa?
The Secretarybird most likely doesn't migrate because it's options are either going across the Sahara desert, a place notorious for being difficult to survive in, and the ocean when it is not at all adapted for eating fish or flying long distances.
2. How tall is the average Secretarybird?
3.5-4.5 feet tall. That's only about a foot lower than the average for humans!
3. What prey does the secretary bird feed on?
The Secretary bird feeds on mostly small rodents and reptiles, although it is most known for eating snakes because it is very adept and taking down even the most venomous of snakes. It does this by stompingon the snake from an angle that does not let it get bitten, and if it does it makes sure it is on its hollow feathers.


We also decided to figure out the standard deviation, variance, a variety of other things, and graph it. The results are below.

The Secretarybird is nonmigratory and lives exclusively south of the Sahara in Africa. These savannahs have mostly grassy flatlands and the occasional tree here and there. There is much competition for food and almost every niche is filled. For a bird of prey, the Secretarybird is fairly well adapted. It has these notable traits:

1. It has the ability to fly so it can nest and hide in the trees. This helps it stay away from predators.

2. It has long legs so it can stomp on its prey like snakes. The legs also help it run, as that is it’s preferred movement method.

3. It has a sharp beak so it can tear through the meat.

4. They have a dark feather crest to be intimidating and be attractive to mates.

We decided to theorycraft how our animal would do in other environments. A new environment for my organism could be the Amazon Jungle in South America. There it is hot, humid, and cluttered. There are so many trees that the sky is all but obscured by the canopy. There is a lot of plant life, so much that it makes up a large amount of the oxygen on the earth. There are a few different predators, like jaguars and caimans, but there are mostly smaller herbivores. These traits might affect the Secretarybird in these ways:

1. Flight
This would continue to be advantageous in an rainforest environment. It is very useful to be able to fly to the top of trees to avoid anything from jaguars to pirahnnas.

2. Legs
This could be useful to still kill snakes, although how big it is would probably be a disadvantage because of the increased density of trees. It might have a harder time flying away from danger.


3. Beak
This will never not be useful for a bird of prey as it needs to tear through tough hide and thick scales to get to the soft tasty flesh underneath.


4. Crest
This is very useful as much of the competition in the Amazon is susceptible to be intimidated as they would rather live another day than die. It also could provide some sort of camouflage to an otherwise very noticeable bird.

"Secretarybird" by Mathias Appel is marked under CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit link

Overall, this has been a very fun unit and action project. It was very interesting to learn about evolution and I think I learned a lot. I also enjoyed going to the Field Museum, Tempus, and researching the Secretarybird. If I were to it again, I might try to pick a animal with more relatives as the Secretarybird is the only living member of its genus and the only other confirmed species has absurdly little documentation. Fortunately, the Secretarybird is interesting enough on it's own that this was fun. A very cool AP all in all.