American Bald Eagle vs

Haliaeetus leucocephalus compared with Chrysococcus minutus

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	American Bald Eagle
Kingdom	Animalia (สัตว์)	Chromista (โครมิสตา)
Phylum	Chordata (สัตว์มีแกนสันหลัง)	Ochrophyta (Ochrophyta)
Class	Aves (นก)	Chrysophyceae (สาหร่ายสีทอง)
Order	Accipitriformes (อันดับเหยี่ยว)	Chromulinales (Chromulinales)
Family	Accipitridae (Hawks & Eagles)	Dinobryaceae
Genus	Haliaeetus (Sea Eagles)	Chrysococcus
Species	Haliaeetus leucocephalus	Chrysococcus minutus

Conservation Status

American Bald Eagle

NE — Not Evaluated

Population: ~316.7K

Trend: Increasing ↑

NE — Not Evaluated

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	American Bald Eagle
Diet	Carnivore	—
Average Lifespan	28 years	—
Average Length	90 cm	—
Average Weight	5.0 kg	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

American Bald Eagle

Habitat

Found across multiple habitat types including tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests, and flooded grasslands and savannas, among 10 distinct biome types spanning the Neotropic and Palearctic realms. Populations are also found in montane and highland environments at higher elevations.

Range

Widely distributed across Europe (8 countries), North America (United States), and South America (Ecuador).

Habitat

Native to Europe, inhabiting ecosystems characteristic of the region.

Range

Distributed across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

American Bald Eagle

The national bird of the United States and a symbol of American conservation success, bald eagles have a wingspan of up to 2.4 meters and inhabit forests and wetlands near open water across North America. Powerful aerial predators and scavengers, they specialize in fish but also take waterfowl and carrion. Nearly extinct by the 1960s due to DDT poisoning and hunting, the bald eagle recovered dramatically following pesticide bans and the Endangered Species Act.

Chrysococcus minutus is a small loricate chrysophyte alga in the genus Chrysococcus, its epithet minutus (Latin: minute or very small) reflecting its diminutive cell dimensions. Like its congeners, the cell is enclosed within a lorica — a rigid, often silicified or organic housing with an apical pore through which the flagellum protrudes. The lorica shape and dimensions provide taxonomic characters for species differentiation within the genus. C. minutus inhabits freshwater environments, including oligotrophic lakes, bog pools, and slow-moving waters in temperate and subarctic regions. Chrysophytes thrive in cold, acidic, low-nutrient waters and serve as reliable bioindicators of water quality. The small cell size of C. minutus places it within the nanoplankton size class, making it an important prey item for heterotrophic nanoflagellates and small ciliates in the freshwater microbial food web. Some Chrysococcus species supplement photosynthesis with bacterivorous feeding. The species has not been evaluated for conservation status and is listed as Not Evaluated by the IUCN. Loricated chrysophytes like C. minutus leave fossil siliceous cysts (stomatocysts) in lake sediments, which are widely used in paleoecological reconstructions.