KINGFISHERS, TODIES, HOOPOES, AND RELATIVES: Coraciiformes

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Kingfishers, todies, hoopoes, and relatives (also called coraciiforms) include some interesting bird families with many of the most beautiful species in the world. The eight families in the order Coraciiformes include: kingfishers (Alcedinidae), todies (To-didae), motmots (Momotidae), bee-eaters (Meropidae), rollers (Coraciidae), hoopoes (Upupidae), woodhoopoes (Phoeniculidae), and hornbills (Bucerotidae). Appearance between adult males and females are similar in most species, except for most hornbills and some kingfishers. The bird families are very distinct from each other, and at first glance would not appear to be related except that they have a common foot structure. All members of the order look like each other with regards to their syndactylous (sin-DACK-tuh-lus) toes. That is, all birds have two, and sometimes three, forward pointing toes on their feet that are joined together partially at the base. The middle toe is connected to the inner toe at its base and to the outer toe for most of its length. The fused-together toes are most notable among bee-eaters and kingfishers.

Generally, all species are small- to medium-sized birds with short legs, rather small and weak feet, and short toes. Coraciiforms are 4 to 31 inches (10 to 79 centimeters) long, and weigh between 0.2 ounces and 8 pounds (6 grams and 4 kilograms). One of the smallest birds is the Puerto Rican tody, which has a length of 4 inches (10 centimeters) and a weight of about 0.2 ounces (6 grams). Two of the largest species are the Southern ground-hornbill and Abyssinian ground-hornbill. Both birds are about 31 inches (79 centimeters) in length and about 7 pounds (3 kilograms) in weight.

Coraciiforms are also recognized as having large heads, short necks, and somewhat large bills. Most have bills that are long, pointed, and colorful. Bills are enormous in the hornbills, often resembling New World toucans (tropical birds with a large beak). Most species have long tails and tall crests, with bright, colorful plumage (feathers).

Coraciiforms share other, less noticeable characteristics, including the structure of the palate bones (the bones on the roof of the mouth), lack of the ambiens muscle in the leg (the muscles that control the movement of toes), and the feather tracts (the spacing of feathers in a pattern).

GEOGRAPHIC RANGE

Coraciiformes are found on all continents except Antarctica. Members of the kingfisher family are most widely distributed of all the families, being found on all ice-free continents, but are most commonly found from New Guinea to tropical Asia. Only a few kingfishers are found in the Americas, with the belted kingfisher being the species most widespread in the United States. The other families have more limited distributions. Motmots and todies are found only in the New World, with motmots found in Mexico and into South America, and todies found in the islands of the Greater Antilles (in the West Indies of the Caribbean).

The other families occur only in the Old World, ranging widely across Africa, Eurasia, and into Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and neighboring islands of the South Pacific. All woodhoopoes and most bee-eaters and rollers are found in Africa, usually in the warmer central and southern regions. The rest of the bee-eaters are found in other temperate and tropical regions of the Old World. Hoopoes are found in Africa and Eurasia. Hornbills are spread out between tropical Africa and Asia, with small populations in the Philippines and Malaysia.

HABITAT

Most coraciiform species are found in the tropical rainforests. Kingfishers usually inhabit tropical forests or woodlands, and are often found near water. Bee-eaters are found in temperate and tropical regions. Other regions of habitat outside of the tropics include coniferous and deciduous forests and grasslands. They are often found along rivers and streams, seacoasts, and wetlands. Many species that live near inland waters in the summer will travel to the seacoast when inland waters freeze over in the winter.

DIET

Coraciiforms eat small animals, especially small vertebrates, or animals with a backbone, (such as fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals), and invertebrates, or animals without a backbone (such as insects, worms, and crustaceans). For instance, the shovel-billed kingfisher eats mainly earthworms. Some species, such as many forest hornbills, eat fruit and berries as their primary source of food, only adding meat when raising their young.

Although most species search for food within trees, some species hunt for food on the ground. They catch their prey primarily by dropping down to the ground from a perch (as with true rollers and bee-eaters) or into water (as with kingfishers). When birds drop down to their prey, they may hover while targeting onto food (as in kingfishers), or they may take the food as they fly (as in bee-eaters and broad-billed rollers). Some families, such as todies and motmots, use both terrestrial (on the ground) and aerial (in the air) techniques for the capture of prey. A few species gather their food while they walk or run about on the ground, such as the common hoopoes and some African hornbills.

BEHAVIOR AND REPRODUCTION

Coraciiforms share the behavior of digging cavity nests in earthen banks, sandy banks, insect and termite hills, or rotten trees. They are considered primitive perching birds. Most members of the order are partly arboreal; that is, they primarily live, feed, and breed in trees. Many members are social in their habits and are somewhat noisy when communicating among themselves and warning others of their presence. In fact, the laughing kookaburra, one of the best known birds of Australia, is famous for its "laughing" song.

Most species nest in cavities, crevices, or holes in a tree, rock face, building, or within the ground (such as a tunnel with the nesting chamber at the end). Kingfishers, todies, motmots, and bee-eaters usually dig their own earthen burrows, which often occur in sandy banks, rotten trees and other wooden places, or insect nests. Nests become very smelly as body waste and the remains of food accumulate inside. Only hornbills maintain tidy nests, going to the effort of directing body waste outside the nest and removing food remains.

Male and female pairs mate for life. Most species are territorial when breeding, meaning that they keep other birds away from their nest. In addition, most species breed as a single male-female pair. In some families, there are species that live and breed as groups (usually a mating pair plus one or a few helpers); some species even nest in large colonies (large groups of birds that live together and are dependent on each other). Males and females generally share duties of nest construction, chick defense, and food delivery (with males providing most of the early gathering of food, and females sharing more feeding duties after the chicks have grown).

Eggs are normally laid inside a cavity that is thinly lined with plant materials. Females produce white or pale eggs, except hoopoes, whose eggs are tinted light blue-green. The eggs are rounded and shiny, except for the oval ones of the hoopoes and hornbills. In most species, the female performs most or all of the incubation (sitting on) of eggs and the raising of young chicks. The eggs hatch after two to four weeks of incubation. The length of time is different for each species. The newborns are hatched helpless, blind, and naked, except in hoopoes, whose newborns have patches of fine down. The upper jaw in newborn chicks is visibly shorter than the lower one. They depend on their parents when very young. They have waxy sheaths (tube-shaped coverings that protect feathers) on their feathers up until the time that they are able to fly.

KINGFISHERS, TODIES, HOOPOES, RELATIVES, AND PEOPLE

People generally enjoy the colorful appearance of coraciiforms. In fact, the area of Sarawak (in north-central Malaysia) is known as "The Land of the Hornbill" and the state of Sabah (in northeast Malaysia) has a kingfisher on its national coat of arms. However, with the continued unrestricted spread of human development into their habitats, the birds continue to be threatened in their abilities to live freely in their natural environments. For the most part, when they have a large geographical range, the birds are commonly seen and not adversely affected by the presence of people.

CONSERVATION STATUS

Twenty-five species of Coraciiformes are threatened with extinction. There are three Critically Endangered species, facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild; five listed as Endangered, facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild; and seventeen species are Vulnerable, facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Books:

Alsop, Fred J. III. Birds of North America. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2001.

AOU Check-list of North American Birds, 7th ed. Washington, DC: The Union (The American Ornithologists' Union), 1998.

del Hoyo, Josep, et al., eds. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions, 1992.

Dickinson, Edward C., ed. The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, 3rd ed. Princeton, NJ and Oxford, U.K.: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Elphick, Chris, John B. Dunning Jr., and David Allen Sibley. The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (distributed by Random House), 2001.

Harrison, Colin James Oliver. Birds of the World. London and New York: Dorling Kindersley (distributed by Houghton Mifflin), 1993.

Forshaw, Joseph, ed. Encyclopedia of Birds, 2nd ed. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1998.

Kaufman, Kenn. Birds of North America. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Perrins, Christopher M., and Alex L. A. Middleton, eds. The Encyclopedia of Birds. New York: Facts on File, 1985.

Stattersfield, Allison, J., and David R. Capper, eds. Threatened Birds of the World: The Official Source for Birds on the IUCN Red List. Cambridge, U.K.: BirdLife International, 2000.