Honeybird
Genus of birds
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
01Description
They are all drab colored birds, with grey or grey-green upper parts, and grey to whitish-grey underparts. They are among the smallest members of the honey guide family. They have slender bills compared to other members of the family.
02Habits
Unlike other honeyguides they do not feed on beeswax. They help in the pollination of plants like Strelitzia, Callistemon (bottle brush), Bombax, Butea monosperma and coral trees (see: ornithophily). They parasitise nests of cisticolas, sunbirds and other dome-nesting bird species.
03Species
There are three species:
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prodotiscus regulus | Brown-backed honeybird | Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, DRC, Ivory Coast, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. | |
| Prodotiscus zambesiae | Green-backed honeybird | Angola, Botswana, DRC, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. | |
| Prodotiscus insignis | Cassin's honeybird | Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, DRC, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Honeybird”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- ProdotiscusPeaseiGronvold, crop.jpg by H Grönvold, Public domain
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