Ramphastides is an infraorder of the order
Piciformes
Nine families of largely arboreal birds make up the order Piciformes , the best-known of them being the Picidae, which includes the woodpeckers and close relatives. The Piciformes contain about 71 living genera with a little over 450 species, of ...
that includes
toucan
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five ge ...
s and barbets. Formerly, the barbets have been classified in a single family, the
Capitonidae. However, this has turned out to be
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
with regard to toucans, which resulted in the
Capitonidae being split into several families.
Systematics
The Ramphastides contain five extant families. Sometimes, they are treated as the superfamily Ramphastoidea.
[Simpson, S. F., & Cracraft, J. (1981). The phylogenetic relationships of the Piciformes (Class Aves). The Auk, 481-494.]
*Infraorder Ramphastides
**
Megalaimidae
The Asian barbets are a family of bird species, the Megalaimidae, comprising two genera with 35 species native to the forests of the Indomalayan realm from Tibet to Indonesia. They were once clubbed with all barbets in the family Capitonidae bu ...
- Asian barbets
**
Lybiidae
The African barbets are birds in the family Lybiidae. There are 43 species ranging from the type genus ''Lybius'' of forest interior to the tinkerbirds (''Pogoniulus'') of forest and scrubland. They are found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with ...
- African barbets
**
Capitonidae - New World barbets
**
Semnornithidae - toucan-barbets
**
Ramphastidae
Toucans (, ) are members of the Neotropical near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five g ...
- toucans
References
External links
Tree of Life Piciformes
{{Taxonbar, from=Q20817955
Pici (taxon)
Neognathae