Honeyguides (
family
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. Idea ...
Indicatoridae) are
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 in the order
Piciformes
Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes , the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of ...
. 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
Honeybirds are birds in the genus ''Prodotiscus'' of the honeyguide family. They are confined to sub-Saharan Africa.
References - Honeybird - A guide by J Ian L. Gong
Description
They are all drab coloured birds, with grey or grey-green upperp ...
''. They have an
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 th ...
tropical distribution, with the greatest number of species in
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 ...
and two in
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
. These birds are best known for their interaction with humans. Honeyguides are noted and named for one or two species that will deliberately lead humans (but, contrary to popular claims, not
honey badger
The honey badger (''Mellivora capensis''), also known as the ratel ( or ), is a mammal widely distributed in Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is liste ...
s) directly to bee colonies, so that they can feast on the grubs and
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 ...
that are left behind.
Description

Most honeyguides are dull-colored, though some have bright yellow coloring in the plumage. All have light outer tail feathers, which are white in all the African species. The smallest species by body mass appears to be the
green-backed honeyguide
The green-backed honeybird (''Prodotiscus zambesiae''), also known as the eastern green-backed honeyguide, green-backed honeyguide and slender-billed honeyguide, is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
Range
It is found in Angola, Bot ...
, at an average of , and by length appears to be the
Cassin's honeyguide, at an average of , while the largest species by weight is the
lyre-tailed honeyguide
The lyre-tailed honeyguide (''Melichneutes robustus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Melichneutes''.F. Gill, M. Wright D. & Donsker (2013) IOC World Bird Names (version 3.3)/ref> It is found ...
, at , and by length, is the
greater honeyguide
The greater honeyguide (''Indicator indicator'') is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. Its English and scientific names refer to its habit of guiding people to bee colonies. C ...
, at .
[Short, L.L. and J. F. M. Horne (2020). ''Greater Honeyguide (Indicator indicator)'', version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.]
They are among the few birds that feed regularly on
wax—
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 ...
in most species, and presumably the waxy secretions of
scale insect
Scale insects are small insects of the order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient grouping than th ...
s in the genus ''
Prodotiscus
Honeybirds are birds in the genus ''Prodotiscus'' of the honeyguide family. They are confined to sub-Saharan Africa.
References - Honeybird - A guide by J Ian L. Gong
Description
They are all drab coloured birds, with grey or grey-green upperp ...
'' and to a lesser extent in ''
Melignomon'' and the smaller species of ''
Indicator
Indicator may refer to:
Biology
* Environmental indicator of environmental health (pressures, conditions and responses)
* Ecological indicator of ecosystem health (ecological processes)
* Health indicator, which is used to describe the health o ...
''. They also feed on
waxworm
Waxworms are the caterpillar larvae of wax moths, which belong to the family Pyralidae (snout moths). Two closely related species are commercially bred – the lesser wax moth (''Achroia grisella'') and the greater wax moth (''Galleria ...
s which are the larvae of the waxmoth ''Galleria mellonella'', on
bee
Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...
colonies, and on flying and crawling insects,
spider
Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species d ...
s, and occasional fruits. Many species join
mixed-species feeding flock
A mixed-species feeding flock, also termed a mixed-species foraging flock, mixed hunting party or informally bird wave, is a flock of usually insectivorous birds of different species that join each other and move together while foraging. These are ...
s.
Behavior
Guiding
Honeyguides are named for a remarkable habit seen in one or two species: guiding humans to
bee colonies. Once the hive is open and the honey is taken, the bird feeds on larvae and wax. This behavior has been studied in the
greater honeyguide
The greater honeyguide (''Indicator indicator'') is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. Its English and scientific names refer to its habit of guiding people to bee colonies. C ...
; some authorities (following Friedmann, 1955) state that it also occurs in the
scaly-throated honeyguide
The scaly-throated honeyguide (''Indicator variegatus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
Range
thumb , left , 200px , Dorsal view, Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, coastal Kenya
It is found in Angola, Burundi, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiop ...
, while others disagree.
Wild honeyguides understand various types of human calls that attract them to engage in the foraging mutualism. In northern Tanzania, honeyguides partner with Hadza hunter-gatherers, and the bird assistance has been shown to increase honey-hunters' rates of finding bee colonies by 560%, and led men to significantly higher yielding nests than those found without honeyguides.
Contrary to most depictions of the human-honeyguide relationship, the Hadza did not actively repay honeyguides, but instead, hid, buried, and burned honeycomb, with the intent of keeping the bird hungry and thus more likely to guide again.
Some experts believe that honeyguide co-evolution with humans goes back to the stone-tool making human ancestor ''
Homo erectus
''Homo erectus'' (; meaning " upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as ''H. heidelbergensis'' and ''H. antecessor' ...
'', about 1.9 million years ago.
Despite popular belief, no evidence indicates that honeyguides guide the
honey badger
The honey badger (''Mellivora capensis''), also known as the ratel ( or ), is a mammal widely distributed in Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is liste ...
; though videos about this exist, there have been accusations that they were staged.
Although most members of the family are not known to recruit "followers" in their quest for wax, they are also referred to as "honeyguides" by linguistic extrapolation.
Breeding
The breeding behavior of eight species in ''Indicator'' and ''Prodotiscus'' is known. They are all
brood parasite
Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its ow ...
s that lay one
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
in a nest of another species, laying eggs in series of about five during a period of 5-7 days. Most favor hole-nesting species, often the related
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 bird family Megalaimidae
** T ...
and
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 region ...
s, but ''Prodotiscus'' parasitizes
cup-nesters such as
white-eye
The white-eyes are a family, Zosteropidae, of small passerine birds native to tropical, subtropical and temperate Sub-Saharan Africa, southern and eastern Asia, and Australasia. White-eyes inhabit most tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, the ...
s and
warbler
Various Passeriformes (perching birds) are commonly referred to as warblers. They are not necessarily closely related to one another, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal, and insectivorous.
Sylvioid warblers
Th ...
s. Honeyguide nestlings have been known to physically eject their hosts' chicks from the nests and they have needle-sharp hooks on their
beak
The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for eating, preening, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for fo ...
s with which they puncture the hosts' eggs or kill the nestlings.
African honeyguide birds are known to lay their eggs in underground nests of other bee-eating bird species. The honeyguide chicks kill the hatchlings of the host using their needle-sharp beaks just after hatching, much as
cuckoo
Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes . The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separat ...
hatchlings do. The honeyguide mother ensures her chick hatches first by internally incubating the egg for an extra day before laying it, so that it has a head start in development compared to the hosts' offspring.
Species
The Indicatoridae contains seventeen
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), 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 ...
in four
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 ...
:
FAMILY: INDICATORIDAE
* Genus: ''
Indicator
Indicator may refer to:
Biology
* Environmental indicator of environmental health (pressures, conditions and responses)
* Ecological indicator of ecosystem health (ecological processes)
* Health indicator, which is used to describe the health o ...
''
**
Spotted honeyguide
The spotted honeyguide (''Indicator maculatus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
It is found in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial ...
, ''I. maculatus''
**
Scaly-throated honeyguide
The scaly-throated honeyguide (''Indicator variegatus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
Range
thumb , left , 200px , Dorsal view, Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, coastal Kenya
It is found in Angola, Burundi, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiop ...
, ''I. variegatus''
**
Greater honeyguide
The greater honeyguide (''Indicator indicator'') is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. Its English and scientific names refer to its habit of guiding people to bee colonies. C ...
, ''I. indicator''
**
Malaysian honeyguide
The Malaysian honeyguide (''Indicator archipelagicus'') is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, which are paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. The species is native to Southeast Asia.
Description
It is a medium-sized, u ...
, ''I. archipelagicus''
**
Lesser honeyguide
The lesser honeyguide (''Indicator minor'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
Range
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republ ...
, ''I. minor''
***
Thick-billed honeyguide
The lesser honeyguide (''Indicator minor'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
Range
It is found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Repub ...
, ''I. (minor) conirostris''
**
Willcocks's honeyguide
Willcocks's honeyguide (''Indicator willcocksi'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae.
It is found mainly throughout the African tropical rainforest.
The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the General Sir James Willcocks ...
, ''I. willcocksi''
**
Least honeyguide, ''I. exilis''
**
Dwarf honeyguide, ''I. pumilio''
**
Pallid honeyguide
The pallid honeyguide (''Indicator meliphilus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. The species is also known as the eastern least honyeguide.
It is found in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tan ...
, ''I. meliphilus''
**
Yellow-rumped honeyguide, ''I. xanthonotus''
* Genus: ''
Melichneutes''
**
Lyre-tailed honeyguide
The lyre-tailed honeyguide (''Melichneutes robustus'') is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Melichneutes''.F. Gill, M. Wright D. & Donsker (2013) IOC World Bird Names (version 3.3)/ref> It is found ...
, ''M. robustus''
* Genus: ''
Melignomon''
**
Yellow-footed honeyguide, ''M. eisentrauti''
**
Zenker's honeyguide, ''M. zenkeri''
* Genus: ''
Prodotiscus
Honeybirds are birds in the genus ''Prodotiscus'' of the honeyguide family. They are confined to sub-Saharan Africa.
References - Honeybird - A guide by J Ian L. Gong
Description
They are all drab coloured birds, with grey or grey-green upperp ...
''
**
Cassin's honeybird, ''P. insignis''
**
Green-backed honeybird, ''P. zambesiae''
**
Brown-backed honeybird
The brown-backed honeybird (''Prodotiscus regulus''), also known as Wahlberg's honeybird, Wahlberg's honeyguide and sharp-billed honeyguide, is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. This bird is named after the Swedish naturalist Joha ...
, ''P. regulus''
References
*
*
External links
Don Roberson's Bird Families of the World*
*
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q214137
Brood parasites
Honeyguides
Symbiosis