Tree kingfisher

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Tree Kingfishers
Woodland Kingfisher(Halcyon senegalensis)
Woodland Kingfisher
(Halcyon senegalensis)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Coraciiformes
Family: Halcyonidae
Genera
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The tree kingfishers or wood kingfishers, family Halcyonidae, are the most numerous of the three families of birds in the kingfisher group. There are between 56 and 61 species of tree kingfisher in around 12 genera, and include several species of kookaburra. The kingfishers are quite well-known: the vagueness of the counts reflects controversies in the taxonomy of this family more than any gross lack of data on the birds themselves; the present arrangement of genera seems to be well warranted by molecular analyses, although the relationship of many genera to one another is still unresolved (Moyle, 2006) [1]

The family appears to have arisen in Indochina and the Malay Archipelago and then spread to many areas around the world. Tree kingfishers are widespread through Asia and Australasia, but also appear in Africa and the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

[edit] List of species in taxonomic order

Genus Lacedo

Genus Dacelo, kookaburras

Genus Clytoceyx

Genus Cittura

Genus Pelargopsis

Genus Halcyon

Genus Todirhamphus

Genus Caridonax

Genus Melidora

Genus Actenoides

Genus Syma

Genus Tanysiptera, Paradise kingfishers

[edit] References

  1. ^ Moyle, Robert G. (2006): A Molecular Phylogeny of Kingfishers (Alcedinidae) With Insights into Early Biogeographic History. Auk 123(2): 487–499. HTML fulltext (without images)

[edit] External links