The ground rollers, Brachypteraciidae, are a small family of non-migratory birds restricted to

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. They are members of the order

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 b ...

and are most closely related to the rollers in the 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 ...

Description

Ground rollers share the generally crow-like size and build of the true rollers, ranging from in length, and also hunt

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s and large

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s. They are more terrestrial than Coracidae species, and this is reflected in their longer legs and shorter, more rounded wings. They lack the highly colourful appearance of the true rollers, and are duller in appearance, with striped or flecked

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

. They are much more elusive and shy than their relatives, and are normally difficult to find in the Malagasy forests. Often the hooting breeding call is all that betrays their presence. These birds nest as solitary pairs in holes in the ground which they excavate themselves, unlike the true rollers, which rarely nest in ground holes and even then do not dig their own nests.

Taxonomy

The phylogenetic relationship between the six families that make up the order Coraciiformes is shown in the cladogram below. 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).

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...

analyses confirmed the systematics of this group but indicated that merging ''Geobiastes'' into ''Brachypteracias'', as was usually done since the 1960s, should be reversed at least until a more comprehensive review (e.g. supported by

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) is possible (Kirchman ''et al.'', 2001). Also, 2000-year-old subfossil remains of ground rollers are known from the Holocene of Ampoza (Goodman, 2000);

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 ...

remains from Europe at first tentatively assigned to this family were later recognized as quite distinct (Mayr & Mourer-Chauviré 2000). Presently, there is no indication that ground rollers ever occurred anywhere outside Madagascar (Mayr & Mourer-Chauviré, 2001).

Species

There are five extant species in four genera in the family Brachypteraciidae: An extinct species, the Ampoza ground roller (''Brachypteracias langrandi''), of presumed

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

age, was described in 2000 based on a single humerus.

References

*Kirchman, Jeremy J.; Hackett, Shannon J.; Goodman, Steven M. & Bates, John M. (2001): Phylogeny and systematics of ground rollers (Brachypteraciidae) of Madagascar, ''

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 ...

'' 118(4): 849–863. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2001)118 849:PASOGR.0.CO;2HTML abstract
*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
*Mayr, Gerald & Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile (2003): Phylogeny and fossil record of the Brachypteraciidae: A comment on Kirchman ''et al.'' (2001). ''

'' 120(1): 202–203. DOI: 10.1642/0004-8038(2003)120 202:PAFROT.0.CO;2PDF fulltext
*Goodman, S.M. (2000). ''A description of a new species of Brachypteracias (Family Brachypteraciidae) from the Holocene of Madagascar.'' Ostrich 71 (1 & 2):p 318–322

External links

Ground roller videos
on the Internet Bird Collection

{{Taxonbar, from=Q539783 Coraciiformes Endemic birds of Madagascar Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte