The water kingfishers or Cerylinae are one of the three subfamilies of , and are also known as the cerylid kingfishers. All six Americas species are in this subfamily.
These are all specialist fish-eating species, unlike many representatives of the other two subfamilies, and it is likely that they are all descended from fish-eating kingfishers which founded populations in the New World. It was believed that the entire group evolved in the Americas, but this seems not to be true. The original ancestor possibly evolved in Africa – at any rate in the Old World – and the Chloroceryle species are the youngest ones.
Phylogeny
Evidence from molecular phylogenetic studies suggests that the Cerylinae originated in Asia and have colonised the New World on two occasions: the first time was around 8 million years ago by the
Chloroceryle and the second time was around 1.9 million years ago by the common ancestor of the ringed kingfisher and the belted kingfisher in the genus
Megaceryle.
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The subfamily Cerylinae contains nine kingfisher species and is divided into three genera:
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Giant kingfisher ( Megaceryle maxima)
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Crested kingfisher ( Megaceryle lugubris)
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Belted kingfisher ( Megaceryle alcyon)
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Ringed kingfisher ( Megaceryle torquata)
|large crested kingfishers with a wide distribution in Africa, Asia and America. The belted kingfisher, ( M. alcyon), is the only kingfisher that is widespread in North America, though the ringed kingfisher ( M. torquata) may be found as far north as Texas and Arizona
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Amazon kingfisher ( Chloroceryle amazona)
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Green kingfisher ( Chloroceryle americana)
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Green-and-rufous kingfisher ( Chloroceryle inda)
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American pygmy kingfisher ( Chloroceryle aenea)
|the four American green kingfishers of tropical America
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Fry, K & Fry, H. C. (1999): Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers, new edition. Christopher Helm Publishers.
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Moyle, Robert G. (2006): A Molecular Phylogeny of Kingfishers (Alcedinidae) With Insights into Early Biogeographic History. Auk 123(2): 487–499. HTML fulltext (without images)
External links
