The wood hoopoes or scimitarbills are a small

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n family, Phoeniculidae, of

near passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s. They live south of the

Sahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

and are not migratory. While the family is now restricted to Sub-Saharan Africa,

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

evidence shows that it once had a larger distribution. Fossils attributed to this family have been found in

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

rocks in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The wood hoopoes are related to the

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s, the rollers, and the

hoopoe Hoopoes () are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "crown" of feathers. Three living and one extinct species are recognized, though for many years all of the extant species were lumped as a single ...

, forming a clade with this last according to Hackett ''et al.'' (2008). A close relationship between the hoopoe and the wood hoopoes is also supported by the shared and unique nature of their

stapes The ''stapes'' or stirrup is a bone in the middle ear of humans and other animals which is involved in the conduction of sound vibrations to the inner ear. This bone is connected to the oval window by its annular ligament, which allows the foo ...

. The wood hoopoes most resemble the true hoopoes with their long down-curved bills and short rounded wings. According to genetic studies, the two genera, ''

Phoeniculus ''Phoeniculus'' is a genus of bird in the family Phoeniculidae. They are restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. The genus contains the following species: Members of this genus have long, slightly down-curved, pointed bills with stout bases. Mos ...

'' and '' Rhinopomastus'', appear to have diverged about ten million years ago, so some systematists treat them as separate subfamilies or even separate

families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...

Description

The wood hoopoes are a morphologically distinct group, unlikely to be mistaken for any other. These

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

are medium-sized ( long, much of which is the tail). They have metallic plumage, often blue, green or purple, and lack a crest. The sexes are similar in all but two species, the

forest wood hoopoe The forest wood hoopoe (''Phoeniculus castaneiceps'') is a species of bird in the family Phoeniculidae. It is found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Guinea, ...

and the

common scimitarbill The common scimitarbill (''Rhinopomastus cyanomelas'') is a species of bird in the family Phoeniculidae. It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia ...

. Their bills are either red or black, although young red-billed species also have black bills and bill colour is correlated with age. The legs are scarlet or black, short, with thick tarsi. They climb tree trunks in the manner of a woodpecker, and when feeding on the ground they hop rather than walking like the true

. Their tails are long and strongly graduated (the central feathers are the longest), and marked conspicuously with white, as are their wings.

Range and behaviour

These are birds of open woodland, savannah, or thornbrush, and are mainly arboreal. They require large trees both for feeding on as well as to provide hollows for nesting and nocturnal roosting. Two species are found exclusively in rainforest, the forest wood hoopoe and the

white-headed wood hoopoe The white-headed wood hoopoe (''Phoeniculus bollei'') is a species of bird in the family Phoeniculidae. Etymology The bird's scientific species name ''bollei'' honors Carl August Bolle (1821-1909), a German naturalist and collector. Subspecies ...

. All the other species are found in more open woodland and bush. They feed on arthropods, especially insects, which they find by probing with their bills in rotten wood and in crevices in bark. They nest in unlined tree holes, laying two to four

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

, which are blue, grey, or olive, and unmarked in most species.

Species

There are eight species. Family: Phoeniculidae

References

External links

Wood hoopoe videos
on The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Macaulay Library {{Taxonbar, from=Q752529 * Higher-level bird taxa restricted to the Afrotropics Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte