Bald Eagle

Open encyclopedia reference

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), which occupies the same niche as the bald eagle in the Palearctic. Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States, and northern Mexico. It is found near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting. The bald eagle is an opportunistic feeder that subsists mainly on fish, upon which it swoops down and snatches from the water with its talons. It builds the largest nest of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any animal species, up to 4 m (13 ft) deep, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide, and 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) in weight. Sexual maturity is attained at the age of four to five years.

Wikipedia contributors, Bald eagle; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T01:19:40.021745+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766)

Name authority

(Linnaeus, 1766)

Common name

Bald Eagle

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Accipitriformes

Family

Accipitridae

Genus

Haliaeetus

Extinction status

Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. megaclassTetrapoda
8. classAves
9. orderAccipitriformes
10. familyAccipitridae Vigors, 1824
11. genusHaliaeetus Savigny, 1809
12. speciesHaliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Haliaeetus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 170 records assigned to Accipitridae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=175420 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3JBJW. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.