Animal
Harpy eagle
The harpy eagle is a huge, strong eagle that lives in rainforests. It has a gray face, a feathery crest and giant feet with big claws.
Harpy eagles are among the largest and most powerful eagles in the world. They live in the lowland rainforests of Central and South America, where they hunt sloths and monkeys in the treetops. Forest loss and shooting have made them rare.
Harpia harpyja is a forest eagle of lowland Neotropical rainforest, from southern Mexico to northeastern Argentina. With rear talons the size of a grizzly bear's claws and an owl-like facial disk, it hunts tree-dwelling mammals. Breeding only every two to three years, it is listed as Vulnerable (IUCN, 2021) because of forest loss and persecution.
Photo: Mdf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the harpy eagle
The harpy eagle is a very big, very strong eagle.
It has a gray head, a black band across its chest and a white tummy. Its feet are huge, with long, curved claws.
The harpy eagle is among the largest and most powerful eagles in the world. It stands 89 to 105 centimeters tall, and its wings stretch about 1.75 to 2 meters across, longer than many grown-ups are tall. A female can weigh up to twice as much as her mate.
Adults have black backs, a dark gray face, a black band across the chest and white underparts. Their back talons are about 8 to 10 centimeters long, about the same size as a grizzly bear's claws.
Harpia harpyja stands 89 to 105 centimeters (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance), with a wingspan of 1.75 to 2.02 meters (Handbook of the Birds of the World, via Wikidata). Females weigh 6.3 to 9 kilograms and males 3.8 to 5.4, so a female can be about twice her mate's weight; Wikidata, citing the Handbook of the Birds of the World, gives averages of 7.5 and 4.4 kilograms. The Peregrine Fund puts the rear talons at about 3 to 4 inches, the size of a grizzly bear's claws; the San Diego Zoo gives 5 inches (13 centimeters).
Adults have black upperparts, a dark gray face, a dark chest band and white belly feathers; young birds are almost all white and light gray. The hero photo shows a harpy eagle flying straight toward the camera on Pipeline Road (Camino del Oleoducto) in Soberanía National Park, Panama.
Quick facts
- Group
- Bird
- Height
- 0.89 to 1.05 m
- Wingspan
- 1.75 to 2.02 m
- Weight
- 3.8 to 9 kg
Rainforest giants
Harpy eagles live in big rainforests in Central and South America.
They need lots of tall trees. They build their nests at the very top of the tallest ones.
Harpy eagles live in lowland tropical rainforests from southern Mexico through Central America and South America to northeastern Argentina. Most live below about 900 meters. They are most common in the Amazon, and have disappeared from many places where they used to live, including El Salvador.
They need big areas of forest with plenty of prey and very tall trees for nesting. A pair can need tens of square kilometers of forest to themselves.
The IUCN's 2021 assessment gives a range from southern Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina. The species is thought to be extinct in much of central and northern Central America, including El Salvador, most of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, parts of Bolivia and Venezuela north of the Orinoco, and probably Argentina's Formosa, Salta and Jujuy.
It occurs in lowland tropical forest, usually below 900 meters and locally to 2,000. It tolerates some degraded forest if large nest trees and prey remain, but is mostly found where forest cover is at least 70 percent, and a Brazilian study found it cannot persist below 50 percent cover. Areas recorded for one breeding pair range from about 10 to 79 square kilometers.
Continents
Its habitat
Where can you find this animal?
- Used to live here · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Used to live here · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
The IUCN lists the harpy eagle as extinct in El Salvador.
Places: El Salvador.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Lowland tropical rainforest from southern Mexico through Central America to northeastern Argentina, most common in the Amazon. Also French Guiana. It is now gone from much of Central America and Brazil's Atlantic Forest, and lives in only part of many countries shown.
Places: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and 9 more places.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Panama, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Guyana, Venezuela, Argentina and 13 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
Hunter of the treetops
Harpy eagles catch animals that live in trees.
They eat sloths, monkeys, possums and porcupines. They do not need to eat every day.
Harpy eagles hunt mostly mammals that live in the trees, such as sloths and monkeys, along with opossums, porcupines, coatis and iguanas. Sometimes they catch animals on the ground, such as armadillos and agoutis.
They hunt by perching quietly for a long time, watching and listening, then swooping through the branches. Females tend to catch bigger animals, such as sloths and monkeys, while the smaller males catch more small ones. Harpy eagles can feed on one catch for several days.
The IUCN records a wide range of mostly mammalian prey, including opossums, primates, anteaters, sloths, armadillos, porcupines and agoutis. The Peregrine Fund adds howler monkeys, sloths of about 8 pounds, iguanas, parrots, coatis, raccoons and young deer, and occasional black vultures and foxes; most prey comes from the canopy and understory.
The San Diego Zoo describes still-hunting from a perch for hours before a fast strike, with prey of up to about 7.7 kilograms; heavy prey is partly eaten on a stump or low branch before it is carried to the nest. Larger females tend to take sloths and monkeys, while males take more small prey. Because they can feed on one kill for several days, harpy eagles can go a week or more without food (Peregrine Fund).
Did you know?
Harpy eagles have owl-like faces.
Harpy eagles have a facial disk of feathers, like an owl's, that helps them hear.
They are one of the few diurnal raptors with a facial disk, which can be raised to direct sound to the ears (Peregrine Fund).
Built for the forest
A harpy eagle has short, wide wings and a long tail.
They help it twist and turn between trees. Its face feathers help it hear, a bit like an owl.
Harpy eagles do not soar high over the forest like many big birds of prey. Their wings are short and broad for their size, and their long tail works like a boat's rudder to steer between branches.
Inside the dim forest, they use their sharp eyes and their hearing to find prey. Like owls, they have a facial disk: a ring of feathers around the face that can be raised to help direct sounds to their ears. They also have a crest of long head feathers they can raise.
The Peregrine Fund notes that harpy eagles are not built for true soaring: relatively short wings and a long, rudder-like tail suit maneuvering through dense vegetation, and they travel slowly from tree to tree. Their legs and feet are massive, and the San Diego Zoo compares the legs to a small child's wrist.
They are one of the few daytime raptors with an owl-like facial disk, whose raised feathers help direct sound to the ears, an advantage in the dim understory; a crest of long feathers can also be raised. The San Diego Zoo reports keen eyesight, able to spot an object under 2 centimeters across from about 200 meters, and that the eagle can turn its head upside down for a better look.
One chick every few years
Harpy eagle parents raise one chick at a time.
The chick is fluffy and white. Its parents feed it for many months, and it stays near the nest for more than a year.
Harpy eagles may stay with the same mate for life. They build a huge nest of sticks high in one of the tallest trees, around 27 to 43 meters up. The female lays one or two eggs, but usually only one chick is raised, and a pair breeds only every two to three years.
The chick is white at first. It is ready to fly at five to six months, but it stays near the nest for over a year, and its parents keep feeding it. It becomes an adult at about five years old.
Pairs are monogamous and may stay together for life, perhaps 25 to 30 years (Peregrine Fund). Nests are built where the branches spread from the trunks of the tallest trees, 27 to 43 meters up according to the San Diego Zoo and around 40 meters according to the Peregrine Fund, often in kapok (silk-cotton) trees, and can measure about 1.5 meters across; pairs reuse them for years. Parents keep adding fresh green twigs after hatching, which some researchers think helps deter parasites.
The female lays one or two eggs every two to three years; both parents incubate, the female most, and usually only the first chick survives. Chicks fledge at five to six months but stay near the nest for over a year, fed less and less often. Plumage darkens with each molt until adulthood at about five years (Peregrine Fund), and harpies can breed from about 5 to 30 years of age (San Diego Zoo).
Quiet watchers
Harpy eagles are awake in the daytime.
They sit very still high in the trees for a long time. They do not call very much, but they can wail and whistle.
Harpy eagles are active by day. They spend much of their time perched high in the trees, sometimes sitting still for hours while they wait for prey. They do not migrate: a pair stays in its own patch of forest all year.
Harpy eagles are quiet birds, but they can make wailing, croaking, whistling and clicking calls. Each pair guards a large area of forest, and it does not usually cross gaps in the forest wider than about 500 meters.
Harpy eagles are diurnal and sedentary, hunting the same established range year-round (San Diego Zoo; IUCN: not a migrant). Much of the day is spent perched in tall trees; the San Diego Zoo reports perching for up to 23 hours while waiting for prey, and the Peregrine Fund notes that they sometimes drop below the canopy to hunt.
They vocalize little, but give wails, croaks, whistles, clicks and mews. Pairs occupy very large territories and the species is patchily distributed; the IUCN notes that it does not usually cross forest gaps of more than about 500 meters, which makes deforestation and fragmentation especially damaging.
Did you know?
A harpy eagle nest is big enough for a person to lie on.
A harpy eagle nest can be about 1.5 meters across and 1.2 meters thick.
The San Diego Zoo describes nests about 1.2 meters thick and 1.5 meters across, reused and remodeled for many years.
Protecting the harpy eagle
There are fewer harpy eagles than there used to be.
Their forests are being cut down, and some people shoot them. Many people now work to protect harpy eagles and teach others about them.
The IUCN lists the harpy eagle as Vulnerable. Its rainforests are being cut down, and many eagles are shot, sometimes because people wrongly fear they will attack them. Because a pair raises only one chick every two to three years, numbers recover slowly.
Conservation groups such as The Peregrine Fund have bred and released harpy eagles in Panama and Belize and taught people that the eagles are not dangerous. In 2002, Panama made the harpy eagle its national bird.
The IUCN assessed Harpia harpyja as Vulnerable in 2021, with a decreasing population of 100,000 to 250,000 mature individuals, because of rapid suspected declines from forest loss and degradation, hunting and persecution, plus collisions with power lines. Birds are shot to protect livestock, out of curiosity or fear, and are sold in live animal markets. A Peregrine Fund survey in Panama in 2002 found people's reasons for killing harpy eagles were all related to misunderstandings about their behavior.
Conservation includes CITES listing, protected areas, Brazilian national action plans, research in Brazil, Ecuador and Panama, and education programs. The Peregrine Fund released almost 50 captive-bred eagles in Panama and Belize from 1998 to 2008, though the IUCN notes few survived long enough to breed. Panama declared the harpy eagle its national bird on April 10, 2002.
IUCN Red List
How is the harpy eagle doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable (this animal)
- Endangered
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Vulnerable
At high risk of disappearing from the wild.
See the IUCN Red List assessment · The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021.3
Amazing facts
-
A harpy eagle's back claws are as big as a bear's claws.
A harpy eagle's rear talons are about 8 to 10 centimeters long, the same size as a grizzly bear's claws.
The Peregrine Fund gives rear talons of about 3 to 4 inches, comparable to a grizzly bear's claws.
-
Harpy eagles have owl-like faces.
Harpy eagles have a facial disk of feathers, like an owl's, that helps them hear.
They are one of the few diurnal raptors with a facial disk, which can be raised to direct sound to the ears (Peregrine Fund).
-
The harpy eagle is Panama's special bird.
Panama made the harpy eagle its national bird in 2002.
Panama declared the harpy eagle its national bird on April 10, 2002, after a Peregrine Fund education campaign.
-
A harpy eagle nest is big enough for a person to lie on.
A harpy eagle nest can be about 1.5 meters across and 1.2 meters thick.
The San Diego Zoo describes nests about 1.2 meters thick and 1.5 meters across, reused and remodeled for many years.
Words to know
- raptor
- a bird of prey, such as an eagle, hawk or owl
- talon
- a long, sharp, curved claw on a bird of prey's foot
- facial disk
- a ring of feathers around a bird's face that helps direct sound to its ears
- canopy
- the top layer of a forest, made of treetops
- umbrella species
- an animal whose protection also protects many others that share its home
- vulnerable
- at high risk of becoming endangered
Discovery challenge
-
What do harpy eagles mostly catch?
What kind of animals do harpy eagles mostly hunt?
Which prey makes up most of the harpy eagle's diet?
- Fish in the sea
- Sloths and monkeys in the trees
- Seeds on the ground
Show the answer
Sloths and monkeys in the trees
They catch animals that live in trees, like sloths and monkeys.
Mostly tree-dwelling mammals such as sloths, monkeys, opossums and porcupines.
Mostly arboreal mammals, including sloths and primates, taken from the canopy and understory.
-
What do a harpy eagle's face feathers help it do?
How does a harpy eagle's facial disk help it?
What is the function of the harpy eagle's facial disk?
- Swim underwater
- Hear its prey
- Keep its eggs warm
Show the answer
Hear its prey
They help it hear, like an owl.
When raised, the facial disk feathers help direct sounds to its ears, helping it find prey in the dim forest.
Raised disk feathers channel sound to the ears, aiding prey location in low light.
-
How often do harpy eagle parents raise a chick?
How often does a harpy eagle pair usually raise a chick?
What is the typical breeding interval of a harpy eagle pair?
- Several times a year
- Once every two to three years
- Only once in their lives
Show the answer
Once every two to three years
About once every two or three years.
About once every two to three years, and usually only one chick survives.
One or two eggs every two to three years, with usually one chick raised, so populations recover slowly.
-
Where do harpy eagles live?
Where do harpy eagles live in the wild?
Which describes the harpy eagle's habitat and range?
- Rainforests of Central and South America
- Deserts of Africa
- Arctic tundra
Show the answer
Rainforests of Central and South America
They live in rainforests in Central and South America.
In lowland rainforests from southern Mexico to northeastern Argentina, most commonly in the Amazon.
Lowland Neotropical forest, usually below 900 meters, from southern Mexico to northeastern Argentina.
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
Brazil
Brazil covers about half of South America and is the fifth-largest country in the world. It holds most of the Amazon River basin and much of the world's largest rainforest, and about 214 million people lived there in 2026, most of them near the Atlantic coast.
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Watch
Country
Panama
Panama is a narrow country in Central America that joins North and South America. Since 1914 the Panama Canal has let ships cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific without sailing around South America. Panama has rainforests, more than 1,600 islands and about 4.6 million people (2025).
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Watch
Natural wonder
Iguaçu Falls
Iguaçu Falls, on the Iguaçu River where Brazil and Argentina meet, is a system of many waterfalls and rapids almost three kilometers wide, with drops of up to about 80 meters. Clouds of spray keep the rainforest around it green and wet.
Experiments to try
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The bald eagle is one of North America's biggest birds, with a white head and tail, a dark brown body and a huge yellow bill. It lives near lakes, rivers and coasts and eats mostly fish. Once rare because of hunting and pesticides, it has made an amazing comeback.
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Brown-throated sloth
The brown-throated sloth is a three-toed sloth of the rainforests of Central and South America. It eats leaves, saves energy by moving very slowly, and its shaggy fur can turn green with tiny algae that grow in it.
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Country
Brazil
Brazil covers about half of South America and is the fifth-largest country in the world. It holds most of the Amazon River basin and much of the world's largest rainforest, and about 214 million people lived there in 2026, most of them near the Atlantic coast.
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Watch
Country
Panama
Panama is a narrow country in Central America that joins North and South America. Since 1914 the Panama Canal has let ships cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific without sailing around South America. Panama has rainforests, more than 1,600 islands and about 4.6 million people (2025).
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Ocelot
The ocelot is a medium-sized wild cat of the Americas, from southern Texas to northern Argentina. Its golden coat has chains of dark-edged spots, and no two ocelots look alike. It hunts mostly at night, catching mice, rats, lizards and birds, and it needs thick plants to hide in.
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Watch
Natural wonder
Iguaçu Falls
Iguaçu Falls, on the Iguaçu River where Brazil and Argentina meet, is a system of many waterfalls and rapids almost three kilometers wide, with drops of up to about 80 meters. Clouds of spray keep the rainforest around it green and wet.
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Golden eagle
The golden eagle is one of the largest and fastest birds of prey in North America, and it lives across much of the Northern Hemisphere. It soars over mountains and open country on wings more than two meters wide and dives at tremendous speed to catch rabbits, hares and ground squirrels.
For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe how the harpy eagle's wings, tail, talons and facial disk suit hunting in rainforest.
- Explain what the harpy eagle eats and how it hunts.
- Describe the harpy eagle's slow breeding cycle.
- Explain why the harpy eagle is Vulnerable and what an umbrella species is.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might short, wide wings be better than long ones inside a forest?
- How could protecting one eagle help many other animals?
- Why do animals that raise few young have a harder time recovering when numbers fall?
Try at home or in class
- Measure 2 meters along a wall with tape and stand beside it to compare with a harpy eagle's wingspan.
- Cup your hands behind your ears like a facial disk and notice how sounds in front of you get louder.
Key vocabulary: raptor, talon, facial disk, canopy, umbrella species, vulnerable
Where these facts come from
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Harpia harpyja (global assessment) , IUCN Red List (BirdLife International)
- Harpy Eagle , The Peregrine Fund
- Harpy eagle , San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 24, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.