The water kingfishers or Cerylinae are one of the three

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zool ...

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

s, and are also known as the cerylid kingfishers. All six

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

species are in this subfamily. These are all specialist fish-eating species, unlike many representatives of the other two subfamilies, and it is likely that they are all descended from fish-eating kingfishers which founded populations in the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

. It was believed that the entire group evolved in the Americas, but this seems not to be true. The original ancestor possibly evolved in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

– at any rate in the Old World – and the ''Chloroceryle'' species are the youngest ones.

Phylogeny

Evidence from

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

studies suggests that the Cerylinae originated in Asia and have colonised the New World on two occasions: the first time was around 8 million years ago by the ''Chloroceryle'' and the second time was around 1.9 million years ago by the common ancestor of the

ringed kingfisher The ringed kingfisher (''Megaceryle torquata'') is a large, conspicuous, and noisy kingfisher bird commonly found along the lower Rio Grande Valley in southeasternmost Texas in the United States through Central America to Tierra del Fuego in Sout ...

and the

belted kingfisher The belted kingfisher (''Megaceryle alcyon'') is a large, conspicuous water kingfisher, native to North America. Taxonomy The first Species description, formal description of the belted kingfisher was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1 ...

in the genus ''

Megaceryle ''Megaceryle'' is a genus of very large kingfishers. They have a wide distribution in the Americas, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The genus was erected by German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1848. The type species is a subspecies of the crest ...

''. The subfamily Cerylinae contains nine kingfisher species and is divided into three genera:

References

* Fry, K & Fry, H. C. (1999): ''Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers'', new edition. Christopher Helm Publishers. * Moyle, Robert G. (2006): A Molecular Phylogeny of Kingfishers (Alcedinidae) With Insights into Early Biogeographic History. ''

Auk Auks or alcids are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the Uria, murres, guillemots, Aethia, auklets, puffins, and Brachyramphus, murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct speci ...

'' 123(2): 487–499
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External links

Water kingfisher videos
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Taxonbar, from=Q1196087 * Kingfishers Taxa named by Ludwig Reichenbach