Acciptridae
Pronounced ak-sip-IH-try-dee
Acciptridae comes from the Latin word for hawk, accipiter. The hawk family includes hawks, eagles, kites and ospreys. They all have a hooked bill, curved talons, and females are usually bigger than the males. This phenomenon is call reverse sexual dimorphism (di means "two," morph means "form") because most males in the animal world are bigger than their female counterparts. The reasons for this are complex but have to with insuring their offspring's survival (Ydenberg and Forbes 1991). It is also interesting to note that the bald eagle and golden eagle listed below are not that closely related, if fact, eagles are really just big hawks (Terres 1980).