Megaceryle
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Belt fisherman ( Megaceryle alcyon ) |
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| Megaceryle | ||||||||||
| Kaup , 1848 |
Megaceryle is a genus of very large kingfishers . They are widespread across America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
The genus was first described in 1848 by the German naturalist Johann Jakob Kaup . The name Megaceryle is derived from the ancient Greek megas (μέγας; "large") and the existing genus Ceryle .
The genus consists of four species:
- Giant fisherman ( Megaceryle maxima )
- Sorrowfish ( Megaceryle lugubris )
- Belt fisherman ( Megaceryle alcyon )
- Red-breasted fisherman ( Megaceryle torquata )
All species are specialized fish-eaters with rigid spring hoods on their heads. They have dark gray or bluish-gray upper sides, which in the American species is largely unpatterned, but can also be clearly spotted, as in the Asian mourning fisherman or the African giant fisherman . The undersides can be white or red-brown. All species except the male red breast fisherman have a contrasting chest band. The underside is always different for the sexes of all species.
The birds nest in horizontal tubes of river banks or sand banks. Both partners dig the brood tube, incubate the eggs and feed the young.
Megaceryle species are often seen sitting exposed on trees, posts, or other suitable vantage points by bodies of water before diving headlong into the water on their prey. This usually consists of fish , crustaceans or frogs , occasionally aquatic insects and other suitably large animals.
Origin and Taxonomy
The earlier view that the Megaceryle species had developed in the New World from a specialized fish-eating kingfisher ancestor, which crossed the Bering Strait , and the American green fishers ( Chloroceryle ) with a large hooded species, which later - in the Pliocene - crossed the Atlantic, developed and formed the giant hooded kingfishers is probably not durable. Rather, it seems that the genus originally came from the Old World - possibly Africa - and that the ancestor of belt and red breast fishermen crossed the ocean.
The Megaceryle species were previously assigned to the genus Ceryle with the gray fisherman , but the latter is genetically closer to the American green fishers.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johann Jakob Kaup: The family of the kingfishers (Alcedidae) . In: Negotiations of the Natural History Association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse and the surrounding area . 2, 1848, p. 68.
- ↑ James A Jobling: The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 , p. 245.
- ↑ Rollers, ground rollers & kingfishers . In: World Bird List Version 7.2 . International Ornithologists' Union. 2017. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
- ^ CH Fry & Kathie Fry, illustrated by Alan Harris: Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers . Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-691-04879-7 .
- ↑ Moyle, Robert G. (2006): " Page no longer available , search in web archives: A molecular phylogeny of kingfishers (Alcedinidae) with insights into early biogeographic history ". Auk 123 (2): 487-499.