Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius), 2019-09-15

You can really see the dinosaur ancestory in this picture. It looks vaguely like what I picture a dromaeosaur would of looked like.

@Hipporex

Indeed. I think dromaeosaurids were more like flightless bird of prey than any mammalian or modern reptilian carnivore. That's why I never really like it when scientists compare them to wolves and other mammalian carnivores. Although if anything the proportions of this secretarybird make it look more like a troodontid than a dromaeosaurid to me.

@Anniella Looking at it again, I agree with you, troodontid seems like a better description. Perhaps it’s the gracile build of the bird.

@Hipporex

Yeah, troodontids often have proportionately longer legs compared to dromaeosaurids, even if some dromaeosaurids were probably quite cursorial (Dakotaraptor, Tianyuraptor).

Of course, the dromaeosaurid comparison is still an adequate analogy given they're related to birds and share many features with them. Not to mention members of both dinosaur groups likely had similar niches to the secretarybird.