Honeyguide

Honeyguides, (family Indicatoridae), are near passerine bird species of 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. They have an Old World tropical distribution, with the greatest number of species in Africa and two in Asia.

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Overview

Most honeyguides are dull-colored, though a few have bright yellow in the plumage. All have light outer tail feathers, which are white in all the African species.

They are among the few birds that feed regularly on wax—beeswax in most species, and presumably the waxy secretions of scale insects in the genus Prodotiscus and to a lesser extent in Melignomon and the smaller species of Indicator. They also feed on the larvae and on waxworms (caterpillars of Galleria mellonella) in bee colonies, and on flying and crawling insects, spiders, and occasional fruits. Many species join mixed-species feeding flocks.

Honeyguides are named for a remarkable habit seen in one or two species: they guide humans, and possibly other large mammals, to bee colonies. Once the mammal opens the hive and takes the honey, the bird feeds on the remaining wax and larvae. This behavior is well studied in the Greater Honeyguide; some authorities (following Friedmann, 1955) state that it also occurs in the Scaly-throated Honeyguide, while others disagree (Short and Horne, 2002).

Although most members of the family are not known to recruit "followers" in their quest for wax, they are also referred to as "honeyguides" by linguistic extrapolation.

The breeding behavior of eight species in Indicator and Prodotiscus is known. They are all brood parasites that lay one egg in a nest of another species, laying eggs in series of about five during five to seven days. Most favor hole-nesting species, often the related barbets and woodpeckers, but Prodotiscus parasitizes cup-nesters such as white-eyes and warblers. Honeyguide nestlings have been known to physically eject their host's chicks from the nest, and they have hooks on their beaks with which they puncture the hosts' eggs or kill the nestlings, by repeated lacerations if not in a fatal stab.

Species

Seventeen species in four genera compose the Indicatoridae:

• Genus Indicator
  • Spotted Honeyguide, Indicator maculatus
  • Scaly-throated Honeyguide, Indicator variegatus
  • Greater Honeyguide, Indicator indicator
  • Malaysian Honeyguide, Indicator archipelagicus
  • Lesser Honeyguide, Indicator minor
  • Thick-billed Honeyguide, Indicator conirostris
  • Willcocks's Honeyguide, Indicator willcocksi
  • Least Honeyguide, Indicator exilis
  • Dwarf Honeyguide, Indicator pumilio
  • Pallid Honeyguide, Indicator meliphilus
  • Yellow-rumped Honeyguide, Indicator xanthonotus
• Genus Melichneutes
  • Lyre-tailed Honeyguide, Melichneutes robustus
• Genus Melignomon
  • Yellow-footed Honeyguide, Melignomon eisentrauti
  • Zenker's Honeyguide, Melignomon zenkeri
• Genus Prodotiscus
  • Cassin's Honeyguide, Prodotiscus insignis
  • Green-backed Honeyguide, Prodotiscus zambesiae
  • Wahlberg's Honeyguide, Prodotiscus regulus

References

• Friedmann, Herbert (1955). The Honeyguides. U.S. National Museum (Bulletin 208). 
• Short, Lester, and Jennifer Horne (2002). Toucans, Barbets and Honeyguides. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854666-1.