Bird of prey and may be raised to an order of their own, Cathartiiformes. The secretary bird and/or osprey are sometimes listed as subfamilies of Acciptridae: Sagittariinae and Pandioninae, respectively. Australia's letter-winged kite is a member of the family Accipitridae, although it is a nocturnal bird. The nocturnal birds of prey – the owls – are classified separately as members of two extant families of the order Strigiformes: Below is a simplified phylogeny of Telluraves which is the clade where the birds of prey belong to along with passerines and several near-passerine lineages. The orders in bold text are birds of prey orders;
The Origin of Birds in fact, was decidedly reptilian and generally opposed to that of modern birds. This included the pelvis, which lacks a pectineal process and has a very different os sacrum from modern birds, as well as the carpus, which Heilmann wrote exhibited the same phenomena found in the wrists of modern reptiles. Its tail was also noted by Heilmann as being extremely reptilian and resembling nothing known of modern birds. He goes on to state that other features of "Archaeopteryx", however, are remarkably birdlike and bear little resemblance to their reptilian analogues. The hand of "Archaeopteryx" is observed as being one