The Coraciiformes are a group of usually colourful

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s including the

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, the

bee-eater The bee-eaters are a group of birds in the family (biology), family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty-one species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characte ...

s, the rollers, the motmots, and the todies. They generally have

syndactyly Syndactyly is a condition wherein two or more digits are fused together. It occurs normally in some mammals, but is an unusual condition in humans. The term is . Classification Syndactyly can be simple or complex. * In simple syndactyly, adja ...

, with three forward-pointing toes (and toes 3 & 4 fused at their base), though in many kingfishers one of these is missing. The members of this order are linked by their "slamming" behaviour, thrashing their prey onto surfaces to disarm or incapacitate them. In the past, Coraciiformes encompassed all anisodactyl (including syndactyl) members of the

Cavitaves Cavitaves is a clade that contains the order Leptosomiformes (cuckoo roller) and the clade Eucavitaves (a large assemblage of birds that includes woodpeckers, kingfishers and trogons).Naish, D. (2012). "Birds." Pp. 379–423 in Brett-Surman, M ...

. This means that the birds currently classified in Leptosomiformes ( cuckoo-roller) and Bucerotiformes (

hornbill Hornbills are birds found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia of the family Bucerotidae. They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a horny casque on the upper ...

hoopoe Hoopoes () are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "Crest (feathers), crown" of feathers which can be raised or lowered at will. Two living and one extinct species are recognized, though for many y ...

s and allies) were formerly classified in Coraciiformes. This is largely an

Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

, with the representation 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: ...

limited to the dozen or so species of todies and motmots, and a mere handful of the more than a hundred species of kingfishers. The name Coraciiformes means "

raven A raven is any of several large-bodied passerine bird species in the genus '' Corvus''. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus. There is no consistent distinction between crows and ravens; the two names are assigne ...

-like". Specifically, it comes from the

Latin language Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

"corax", meaning "raven" and Latin "forma", meaning "form".

Systematics

The phylogenetic relationships between the six families in the order Coraciiformes is shown below. The cladogram is based on a large study by

Richard Prum Richard O. Prum (born 1961) is an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist. He is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, as well as the head curator of vertebrate zoology at th ...

and colleagues published in 2015. The number of species in each family is taken from the list maintained by Frank Gill, Pamela C. Rasmussen and David Donsker on behalf of the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC). Several extinct coraciiform families are only known from

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

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 preserve ...

s. They probably belong to the basal group and are sometimes difficult to assign because they were even closer still to the Piciformes (''see also'' '' Neanis''). In addition, there are some prehistoric

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

which are likewise difficult to place into a family. At least the Eocoraciidae are very basal, but the Late

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

(some 35 mya) Geranopteridae form a superfamily Coracioidea with the extant rollers and ground-rollers already (Mayr & Mourer-Chauviré 2000). A few prehistoric

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

of the present-day families have been described; see the family articles for details.

Taxonomic sequence

Unresolved ** Genus '' Quasisyndactylus'' (

; Middle Eocene of Messel, Germany) - alcediniform, basal? ** Genus '' Cryptornis'' (

; Late Eocene of France) – bucerotid? geranopterid? ** Family Primobucconidae (

), including '' Primobucco'' and ''

Septencoracias ''Septencoracias'' is an extinct genus of bird related to modern Coraciidae, rollers and other Coraciiformes such as kingfishers, bee-eaters, motmots, and tody, todies. It contains two species, ''Septencoracias morsensis'' described in 2016, and ...

'' ** Coraciiformes gen. et spp. indet. PQ 1216, QU 15640 (

; Late Eocene of Quercy, France: Mayr & Mourer-Chauviré 2000) ** Genus '' Protornis'' (

: Oligocene of Switzerland) – basal to motmotids and meropids? A recent study suggest that the following families may belong to a separate order called Bucerotiformes. The results still in dispute though. * Family Bucorvidae (ground hornbills) * Family

Bucerotidae Hornbills are birds found in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Melanesia of the family Bucerotidae. They are characterized by a long, down-curved bill which is frequently brightly coloured and sometimes has a horny casque on the upper ...

(hornbills) * Family Upupidae (hoopoe) * Family Phoeniculidae (woodhoopoes) The Leptosomidae (cuckoo roller) probably do not belong here. The trogons are sometimes placed here as a family Trogonidae. The Late Eocene Palaeospizidae are sometimes also placed in the Coraciiformes, as are the Early to Middle Eocene Primobucconidae and the Middle Eocene to Early Oligocene Sylphornithidae. The Primobucconidae at least indeed seem to belong here. *Basal group ** Family Eocoraciidae (

; Middle Eocene of Messel, Germany) ** Family Geranopteridae (

; Late Eocene of Quercy, France – Early Miocene of Czech Republic) - includes ''"Nupharanassa" bohemica'' ** Family

Coraciidae Coraciidae () is a family of Old World birds, which are known as rollers because of the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. The family contains 13 species and is divided into two genera. Rollers ...

(rollers) ** Family Brachypteraciidae (ground-rollers) ** Family Meropidae (bee-eaters) *Suborder Alcedines ** Family Todidae (todies) ** Family Momotidae (motmots) ** Family Alcedinidae (kingfishers)

References

*Johansson, Ulf S. & Ericson, Per G. P. (2003): Molecular support for a sister group relationship between Pici and Galbulae (Piciformes sensu Wetmore 1960). '' J. Avian Biol.'' 34(2): 185–197. PDF fulltext
*Mayr, Gerald & Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile (2000): Rollers (Aves: Coraciiformes. s.s.) from the Middle Eocene of Messel (Germany) and the Upper Eocene of the Quercy (France). '' J. Vertebr. Paleontol.'' 20(3): 533–546. DOI:10.1671/0272-4634(2000)020 533:RACSSF.0.CO;2PDF fulltext
*Terres, John K. (1980) The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds.

External links

Order Coraciiformes - Biodiversity Overview: Untamed Science

Tree of Life: Coraciiformes
{{Authority control Extant Eocene first appearances Bird orders Eocene taxonomic orders Oligocene taxonomic orders Miocene taxonomic orders Pliocene taxonomic orders Pleistocene taxonomic orders Holocene taxonomic orders

Systematics

Taxonomic sequence

See also

References

External links