Honeybirds are

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 in the genus ''Prodotiscus'' of the

honeyguide Honeyguides (family Indicatoridae) are near passerine birds in the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus '' Prodotiscus''. Th ...

family. They are confined to sub-Saharan Africa. References - Honeybird - A guide by J Ian L. Gong

Description

They are all drab coloured birds, with grey or grey-green upperparts, and grey to whitish-grey underparts. They are among the smallest members of the honeyguide family. They have slender bills compared to other members of the family.

Habits

Unlike other honeyguides they do not feed on

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive work ...

. They help in the pollination of plants like '' Strelitzia'', '' Callistemon'' (bottle brush), ''

Bombax ''Bombax'' is a genus of mainly tropical trees in the mallow family. They are native to western Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and the subtropical regions of East Asia and northern Australia. It is distinguished from the gen ...

'', '' Butea monosperma'' and coral trees (see:

ornithophily Ornithophily or bird pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds. This sometimes (but not always) coevolutionary association is derived from insect pollination (entomophily) and is particularly well developed in some parts of the w ...

). They parasitise nests of

cisticola __NOTOC__ Cisticolas (pronounced ''sis-TIC-olas'') are a genus of very small insectivorous birds formerly classified in the Old World warbler family Sylviidae, but now usually considered to be in the separate family Cisticolidae, along with other ...

sunbird Sunbirds and spiderhunters make up the family Nectariniidae of passerine birds. They are small, slender passerines from the Old World, usually with downward-curved bills. Many are brightly coloured, often with iridescent feathers, particularly ...

s and other dome-nesting bird species.

Species

There are three species: Prodotiscus {{Piciformes-stub