This single extant species has affected the fossil record of the group by ‘pulling’ the temporal range of the family to the present, an artifact called the Pull of the recent.[6][relevant?]
German naturalists Otto Finsch and Gustav Hartlaub established the taxon name as a subfamily—Sagittariinae—in 1870. Although their term postdated Gypogeranidae of Vigors (1825) and Serpentariidae of Selys Longchamps (1842), the genus name Sagittarius (described in 1783) had priority over GypogeranusIlliger, 1811 and SerpentariusCuvier, 1798.
^Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile; Cheneval, Jacques (1983). "Les Sagittariidae fossiles (Aves, Accipitriformes) de l'Oligocène des phosphorites du Quercy et du Miocène inférieur de Saint-Gérand-le-Puy". Geobios. 16 (4): 443–459. Bibcode:1983Geobi..16..443M. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(83)80104-1.
^Bock, Walter J. (1994). "History and Nomenclature of Avian Family-Group Names". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 222: 1–236 [112, 133]. hdl:2246/830.
^ abcdCécile Mourer-Chauviré (2003). "Birds (Aves) from the Middle Miocene of Arrisdrift (Namibia). Preliminary study with description of two new genera: Amanuensis (Accipitriformes, Sagittariidae) and Namibiavis (Gruiformes, Idiornithidae)". In Martin Pickford; Brigitte Senut (eds.). Geology and palaeobiology of the Central and Southern Namib. Vol. 2: Paleontology of the Orange River Valley(PDF). Geological Survey of Namibia, Memoir 19. pp. 103–113.
