Form and function

Size and plumage

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The coraciiform birds are a rather heterogeneous order, united mainly by features of their internal anatomy. Some characteristics of the beak and feet serve to separate them from other orders, such as perching birds (Passeriformes) and the woodpeckers and their allies (Piciformes), which appear to be their closest relatives.

No single coraciiform family encompasses the entire size range of the order. The smallest are the todies, with lengths of 9 to about 11.5 cm (3.5 to 4.5 inches), and the largest are the hornbills, from about 40 to 160 cm (16 to 63 inches). The kingfishers are from 10 to nearly 46 cm long (4 to 18 inches), the longest being those with extended tail feathers. Motmots and bee-eaters are in the same general size range as the kingfishers, but the smallest of them are larger than the tiniest kingfishers (Ceyx, Ispidina). In addition, the largest motmots, although about 50 cm (20 inches) long, have not nearly the body bulk of the chunkier but slightly smaller kookaburras (about 45 cm, or 18 inches). The smaller families have, predictably, less size variation.

The plumage of the rollerlike birds is firm and often highly colourful. The bee-eaters are collectively and individually among the most brilliantly coloured of all birds; one individual may be marked with green, yellow, red, blue, and black. Many kingfishers are also brightly coloured, with a tendency toward metallic blues and blue greens. The beak is often bright red or orange. Most hornbills, with ornamentation frequently found on the beak, are strikingly patterned in black, white, and shades of gray and are sometimes accented with rufous or yellow; many have areas of bare skin, blue, red, yellow, or black in colour, around the face.

Morphological specializations

A few of the external features, such as modifications of the wings and feet for locomotion and of the beak for food handling, are obviously related to behaviour and habitat. Even in these important aspects of the body plan, the common heritage is evident in such features as the small feet and fusion of the front toes.

The most obvious adaptation to behaviour is the shape of the wing. The size and shape of the wing correlates well with the type of flight. Aerial feeders have the longest, most pointed wings; the most extreme forms are found in the bee-eaters, but they are also well developed in the rollers and the cuckoo roller. The birds that watch for their prey and fly out after it (such as kingfishers) have moderate, rounded wings, while the ground feeders (such as ground rollers and hoopoes) and those that feed on foot in the trees (such as hornbills and wood hoopoes) have broad wings.

The tail is highly diversified in length and shape. Forked tails occur only in the best fliers (bee-eaters and rollers), though some of these birds have square tails or elongated central tail feathers instead. Elongated central tail feathers also occur in the hornbills that practice direct flight and in ground rollers that fly little. The small kingfishers have the shortest tails. The exact shape of the tail does not correlate well with locomotion, nor does the presence of spatulate tips on elongated tail feathers in motmots, rollers, and kingfishers, which are perhaps of social importance.

The characteristic short tarsus (the lower leg) of the order and the fusion of the three front toes (except in the cuckoo roller) seem a heritage that has been modified but little with modification of behaviour. The foot is used only for perching in most family groups. In cases in which it is used extensively for terrestrial locomotion (ground rollers, hoopoe), the tarsus is lengthened somewhat in the former but not in the latter; the tarsus is also somewhat lengthened in the aberrant hornbill, known as the ground hornbill. The hornbills that feed in the tree branches have a broad pad on the toes, evidently an adaptation for perching. The wood hoopoes have long slender toes with long, sharp, curved claws, an obvious adaptation for the bark-climbing habits of these birds.

The most unusual foot in the order belongs to the cuckoo roller, whose outer toe is capable of being reversed. This makes a better perching foot for the bird that flies over the forest trees, scanning the branches for its prey and alighting suddenly to seize a caterpillar, chameleon, or grasshopper.

The bills show remarkable diversity in bulk and shape. Basically, the long stout bill so common in this order seems to be an adaptation for seizing and subduing active animal prey that is large in proportion to the size of the bird. This is true for rollers, ground rollers, cuckoo rollers, and motmots, all of which have only moderately long and stout bills. The larger, rather stouter, straight bill of the kingfishers is an exaggerated version in birds that often take small invertebrates. The hornbills—with their very large, laterally compressed bills, often ornamented with a prominent horny casque in the male (smaller in the female)—seem to have carried bill size beyond the point of a strictly functional feeding organ. Species that feed largely on fruit plucked from branches as well as species that take lizards and snakes and dig in the ground for insects all have exaggerated bills.

An advantage of a long bill can be seen in hornbills that feed on fruits among the outer branches of forest trees; the long bill enables the bird to reach fruit on slender, outer twigs. There is also the probability, evidenced by the sexual difference in bill ornamentation, that the bill serves in courtship and perhaps in other social contacts within the small parties characteristic of hornbills.

Another type of long bill in the order is that of the hoopoes and the wood hoopoes, which is a slender and slightly to strongly downcurved bill. The former use the bill to probe in the ground while walking, the latter to poke into crevices and crannies of the barks and branches of trees.

Similarities to birds of other orders

The size of the birds of this order and their propensity to take rather large prey bring them into competition with many other species of other groups. It is perhaps instructive to compare certain Old World groups with representatives of different orders in the New World tropics (see above Natural history). The most striking parallel is seen between the toucans (Rhamphastidae, order Piciformes) and the hornbills, which—with their enormous bills, small feet, general diet, behaviour, and appearance—are remarkably alike. A similar degree of convergence is seen between the bee-eaters and the jacamars (Galbulidae, order Piciformes) of tropical America and also between some African wood hoopoes (Rhinopomastes) and American wood hewers (Campylorhamphus). Similar ecological conditions apparently have brought similar adaptations in external structure and behaviour between birds of quite unrelated orders in widely separated areas.