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Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of the Piciformes has been hampered by poor understanding of the evolution of the zygodactyl foot. A number of prehistoric families and genera, from the Early
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 ...
of largely arboreal 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 lightweigh ...
s make up the order Piciformes , the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpecker
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...
s and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
with a little over 450 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 ...
, of which the Picidae (woodpecker
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...
s and relatives) make up about half.
In general, the Piciformes are insectivorous, although the barbets
Barbet may refer to:
* Barbet (dog), a dog breed
* Various birds in the infraorder Ramphastides
** African barbet, part of the bird family Lybiidae
** New World barbet, the bird family Capitonidae
** Asian barbet
The Asian barbets are a family ...
and toucan
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five ge ...
s mostly eat fruit and the honeyguide
Honeyguides (family Indicatoridae) are near passerine birds in the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus '' Prodotiscus''. Th ...
s are unique among birds in being able to digest beeswax
Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers ...
(although insects make up the bulk of their diet). Nearly all Piciformes have parrot-like zygodactyl
In biology, dactyly is the arrangement of digits (fingers and toes) on the hands, feet, or sometimes wings of a tetrapod animal. It comes from the Greek word δακτυλος (''dáktylos'') = "finger".
Sometimes the ending "-dactylia" is used ...
feet—two toes forward and two back, an arrangement that has obvious advantages for birds that spend much of their time on tree trunks. An exception are a few 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 ...
of three-toed woodpeckers. The jacamar
The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of near passerine birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical f ...
s aside, Piciformes do not have down feather
The down of birds is a layer of fine feathers found under the tougher exterior feathers. Very young birds are clad only in down. Powder down is a specialized type of down found only in a few groups of birds. Down is a fine thermal insulator an ...
s at any age, only true feathers. They range in size from the rufous piculet at 8 centimetres in length, and weighing 7 grams, to the toco toucan
The toco toucan (''Ramphastos toco''), also known as the common toucan or giant toucan, is the largest and probably the best known species in the toucan family. It is found in semi-open habitats throughout a large part of central and eastern Sou ...
, at 63 centimetres long, and weighing 680 grams. All nest in cavities and have altricial
In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, but with the aid of their parents mature after birth. Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the mome ...
young.
Systematics
The Galbulidae and Bucconidae are often separated into a distinct Galbuliformes order. Analysis ofnuclear gene
A nuclear gene is a gene whose physical DNA nucleotide sequence is located in the cell nucleus of a eukaryote. The term is used to distinguish nuclear genes from genes found in mitochondria or chloroplasts. The vast majority of genes in eukary ...
s confirms that they form a lineage of their own, but suggests that they are better treated as a suborder. The other families form another monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
group of suborder rank, but the barbets were determined to be paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
with regard to the toucans and hence, the formerly all-encompassing Capitonidae have been split up. The woodpeckers and honeyguides are each other's closest relatives. According to some researchers, the entire order Piciformes should be included as a subgroup in Coraciiformes
The Coraciiformes are a group of usually colourful birds including the kingfishers, the bee-eaters, the rollers, the motmots, and the todies. They generally have syndactyly, with three forward-pointing toes (and toes 3 & 4 fused at their base) ...
.
Evolution
Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of the Piciformes has been hampered by poor understanding of the evolution of the zygodactyl foot. A number of prehistoric families and genera, from the Early Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...
''Neanis
''Neanis'' is an extinct genus of bird probably related to woodpeckers and toucans. It contains at least one species, ''N. schucherti''; ''N. kistneri'' resembles this, but it probably belongs to a distinct genus and may not be closely related. B ...
'' and '' Hassiavis'', the Zygodactylidae/ Primoscenidae, Gracilitarsidae, Sylphornithidae, and ''" Homalopus"'',Described in 1870, its name is preoccupied by a subgenus
In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...
of '' Cryptocephalus'' leaf beetle
The insects of the beetle family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles, and include over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making up one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle ...
s described in 1835. to the Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first 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 means "less recen ...
''"Picus" gaudryi'' and the Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Bathoceleus'' are sometimes tentatively assigned to this order. There are some
Tree of Life Piciformes
{{Authority control Bird orders Neognathae Extant Eocene first appearances Eocene taxonomic orders Oligocene taxonomic orders Miocene taxonomic orders Pliocene taxonomic orders Pleistocene taxonomic orders Holocene taxonomic orders
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
ancestral Piciformes known from 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 ...
s which have been difficult to place but at least in part probably belong to the Pici. The modern families are known to exist since the mid-late Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...
to early Miocene; consequently, the older forms appear to be more basal. A large part of Piciform evolution seems to have occurred in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
where only Picidae occur today; perhaps even some now exclusively Neotropical
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
families have their origin in the Old World
The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...
.
Classification
Order: PICIFORMES * Unassigned (allfossil
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 ...
)
** Piciformes gen. et sp. indet. IRScNB Av 65 (Early Oligocene of Boutersem, Belgium)
** Piciformes gen. et sp. indet. SMF Av 429 (Late Oligocene of Herrlingen, Germany)
* Suborder Galbuli
Galbuli is one of the two suborders of the order Piciformes and includes two families Bucconidae (puffbirds) and Galbulidae (jacamars). The other suborder Pici is a global group of piciforms, puffbirds and jacamars are only found in the Neotropic ...
** Family Galbulidae
The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of near passerine birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical ...
– jacamars (18 species)
** Family Bucconidae
The puffbirds and their relatives in the near passerine family Bucconidae are tropical tree-dwelling insectivorous birds that are found from South America up to Mexico. Together with their closest relatives, the jacamars, they form a divergent ...
– puffbirds, nunbirds and nunlets (some 38 species)
* Suborder Pici
Pici (; ) is thick, hand-rolled pasta, like fat spaghetti.'' Il Devoto-Oli. Vocabolario della lingua Italiana'', edited by Luca Serianni and Maurizio Trifone, Le Monnier. It originates in the province of Siena in Tuscany; in the Montalcino are ...
** Unresolved and basal taxa (all 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 ...
)
*** Genus '' Rupelramphastoides'' (Early Oligocene of Frauenweiler, Germany)
*** Pici gen. et sp. indet. (Middle Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban, France)
*** Family Miopiconidae (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 ...
)
*** Family Picavidae (fossil)
** Infraorder Ramphastides
Ramphastides is an infraorder of the order Piciformes that includes toucans and barbets. Formerly, the barbets have been classified in a single family, the Capitonidae. However, this has turned out to be paraphyletic with regard to toucans, whi ...
*** Family Megalaimidae
The Asian barbets are a family of bird species, the Megalaimidae, comprising two genera with 35 species native to the forests of the Indomalayan realm from Tibet to Indonesia. They were once clubbed with all barbets in the family Capitonidae bu ...
– Asian barbets (about 25 species)
*** Family Lybiidae
The African barbets are birds in the family Lybiidae. There are 43 species ranging from the type genus ''Lybius'' of forest interior to the tinkerbirds (''Pogoniulus'') of forest and scrubland. They are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with ...
– African barbets (about 40 species)
*** Family Capitonidae – New World barbets (about 15 species)
*** Family Semnornithidae – toucan barbets (2 species)
*** Family Ramphastidae
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five g ...
– toucans (about 40 species)
** Infraorder Picides
Picides is an infraorder of the order Piciformes that includes woodpeckers and honeyguides. The honeyguides were thought to be closely related to the barbets, as their aerial displays and vocalizations are more similar to each other than either a ...
*** Family Indicatoridae
Honeyguides (family Indicatoridae) are near passerine birds in the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus ''Prodotiscus''. T ...
– honeyguides (17 species)
*** Family Picidae – woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks (over 200 species)
See also
* List of Piciformes by populationReferences
Further reading
* Gorman, Gerard (2004): Woodpeckers of Europe: A Study of the European Picidae. Bruce Coleman, UK. .External links
Tree of Life Piciformes
{{Authority control Bird orders Neognathae Extant Eocene first appearances Eocene taxonomic orders Oligocene taxonomic orders Miocene taxonomic orders Pliocene taxonomic orders Pleistocene taxonomic orders Holocene taxonomic orders