''Coracias'' is a

genus 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 nom ...

of the rollers, an Old World

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 ...

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 related to the

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s and

bee-eater The bee-eaters are a group of non-passerine birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by ...

s. They share the colourful appearance of those groups, blues and browns predominating. The two outer front toes are connected, but not the inner one.

Taxonomy

The

''Coracias'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...

in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae''. The genus name is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''korakías'' (), derived from ''korax'' (, ‘raven, crow’).

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...

described the ''coracias'' as a bird as big as a crow with a red beak, which some believe to be the

chough There are two species of passerine birds commonly called chough ( ) that constitute the genus ''Pyrrhocorax'' of the Corvidae (crow) family of birds. These are the red-billed chough (''Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax''), and the Alpine chough (or yellow- ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

was designated as the

European roller The European roller (''Coracias garrulus'') is the only member of the roller family of birds to breed in Europe. Its overall range extends into the Middle East, Central Asia and the Maghreb. The European roller is found in a wide variety of hab ...

(''Coracias garrulus'') by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother ...

in 1855. The phylogenetic relationships among the species were determined in a molecular study published in 2018.

Species

Nine

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of 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 the appropriate s ...

are recognized:

Former species

Formerly, some authorities also considered the following species (or subspecies) as species within the genus ''Coracias'': *

Olive-backed oriole The olive-backed oriole (''Oriolus sagittatus''), or white-bellied oriole, is a very common medium-sized passerine bird native to northern and eastern Australia and south-central New Guinea. The most wide-ranging of the Australasian Old World ori ...

(as ''Coracias sagittata'') *

Eurasian golden oriole The Eurasian golden oriole (''Oriolus oriolus'') also called the common golden oriole, is the only member of the Old World oriole family of passerine birds breeding in Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. It is a summer migrant in Europe and ...

(as ''Coracias oriolus'') *

Black-hooded oriole The black-hooded oriole (''Oriolus xanthornus'') is a member of the Old World oriole, oriole family of passerine birds and is a resident breeder in tropical southern Asia from India and Sri Lanka east to Indonesia. It is a bird of open woodland ...

(as ''Coracias xanthornus'') *

Broad-billed roller The broad-billed roller (''Eurystomus glaucurus'') is a member of the roller family of birds which breeds across tropical Africa and Madagascar in all but the driest regions. It is a wet season breeder, which migrates from the northern and south ...

(as ''Coracias glaucurus'') * Broad-billed roller (afer) (as ''Coracias afra'') *

Oriental dollarbird The Oriental dollarbird (''Eurystomus orientalis'') is a bird of the roller family, so named because of the distinctive pale blue or white, coin-shaped spots on its wings. It can be found from Australia to Korea, Japan and India. Taxonomy The O ...

(as ''Coracias orientalis'') * Australian roller (as ''Coracias pacifica'')

Behaviour and ecology

''Coracias'' rollers are watch-and wait hunters. They sit in a tree or on a post before descending on their prey and carrying it back in the beak to a perch before dismembering it. A wide range of terrestrial invertebrates, and small vertebrates such as frogs, lizards rodents and young birds, are taken. Their prey includes items avoided by many other birds, such as hairy caterpillars, insects with warning colouration and snakes. They often perch prominently whilst hunting, like giant shrikes.

References

External links

Roller videos
on the Internet Bird Collection {{Taxonbar, from=Q44617 Coraciidae Bird genera Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus