Honeyguide
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
small plainly colored Old World bird of the family Indicatoridae, known for its habit of leading man and some lower animals (notably the honey badger) to the nests of wild bees.
[edit] Honeyguides
Order: Piciformes Family: Indicatoridae
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.
Lyre-tailed Honeyguide
Melichneutes robustus
[c. Africa]
A (perhaps) apocryphal story that I've heard is that Cassin, the pioneering ornithologist in the Congo basin, never saw this species despite hearing it on many occasions.
Bird/Badger Collaboration: Some sources say that a bird, the honeyguide, has a habit of leading ratels and other large mammals to bees' nests. When a ratel breaks into the nest, the birds take their share too.
Members of the order Piciformes, such as the jacamars, puffbirds, barbets, toucans and honeyguides, have traditionally been thought to be very closely related to the woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks.
PICIFORMES
woodpeckers, toucans, barbets, jacamars, honeyguides, & puffbirds
keel-billed toucan
TOCO TOUCAN ...
Many authorities treat it as conspecific with Black-spotted Barbet Capito niger most notably Sibley & Monroe and Short & Horne the authors of not only the excellent "Toucans, Barbets & Honeyguides" but also of the Barbets chapter in HBW.
 See also: Eagle, Robin, Pheasant, Petrel, Parrot
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