River kingfisher
The river kingfishers or pygmy kingfishers, subfamily Alcedininae, are one of the three subfamilies of kingfishers. The river kingfishers are widespread through Africa and east and south Asia as far as Australia, with one species, the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) also appearing in Europe and northern Asia. This group includes many kingfishers that actually dive for fish. The origin of the subfamily is thought to have been in Asia.
| River kingfisher | |
|---|---|
| A male common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis). | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Coraciiformes |
| Family: | Alcedinidae |
| Subfamily: | Alcedininae Rafinesque, 1815 |
| Genera | |
| Phylogeny of the Alcedininae | |||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| Cladogram based on Andersen et al. (2017) |
These are brightly plumaged, compact birds with short tails, large heads, and long bills. They feed on insects or fish, and lay white eggs in a self-excavated burrow. Both adults incubate the eggs and feed the chicks.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.