tody

Todies Fossil range: early Oligocene – Recent
Jamaican Tody
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Coraciiformes Family: Todidae Vigors, 1825 Genus: Todus Brisson, 1760
Species
See text.

The todies are a family, Todidae, of Caribbean birds in the order Coraciiformes, which also includes the kingfishers, bee-eaters and rollers. The family has one genus, Todus. These are small near passerine species of forests of the Greater Antilles: Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba with adjacent islands have one species each, and Hispaniola has two, the Broad-billed Tody in the lowlands (including Gonâve Island) and the Narrow-billed Tody in the highlands^[1][2].

Description

Todies range in weight from 5 to 7 g and in length from 10 to 11.5 cm (4 to 4.5 inches). They have colourful plumage and resemble kingfishers, with green heads, backs and wings, red throats (absent in immature Puerto Rican, Broad-billed, and Narrow-billed Todies^[1]) with a white and blue-grey stripe on each side, and yellow undertail coverts; the colour of the rest of the undersides is pale and varies according to species. The irises are pale grey. They have long, flattened bills (as do many flycatching birds) with serrated edges; the upper mandible is black, the lower red with a little black. The legs and especially feet are small.^[2] Todies are highly vocal, except that the Jamaican Tody seldom calls in the non-breeding season (August to November);^[1] they give simple, unmusical buzzing notes, beeps, and guttural rattles, puffing their throats out with every call.^[2] Their wings produce a "strange, whirring rattle", though mostly when courting or defending territory in the Puerto Rican Tody.^[1]

Cuban Tody

They eat small prey such as insects and lizards. Insects form the greater part of the diet, particularly grasshoppers and crickets, beetles, bugs, butterflies, bees, wasps and ants. Spiders and millipedes may also be taken, as is a small amount of fruit (2% of the diet).^[3] Todies typically sit on a low small twig, singly or in pairs, keeping still or possibly stepping sideways like parrots or hopping sideways. When they see prey moving on the lower surface of a leaf, they fly a short distance (averaging 2.2 metres or 7 feet in the Broad-billed Tody, 1 metre or 3 feet in the Puerto Rican Tody^[1]) diagonally upward to glean it. They may also take prey from the ground, occasionally chasing it with a few hops. At all times they are sedentary; the longest single flight known for the Broad-billed Tody is 40 metres (130 feet)^[1][2]. Their activity is greatest in the morning when sunny weather follows rain, and in March and September.^[1]

Like most of the Coraciiformes, todies nest in tunnels, which they dig with their beaks and feet in steep banks^[2] or rotten tree trunks^[1]. The tunnel is 30 cm long in the Cuban and Narrow-billed Todies, 30 to 60 cm in the Broad-billed^[1] and ends in a nest chamber, generally not reused. They lay about four round white eggs in the chamber. Both parents incubate but are surprisingly inattentive. The young are altricial and stay in the nest till they can fly. Both parents also care for the nestlings, now much more attentively—indeed they may feed each chick up to 140 times per day, the highest rate known among birds.^[2]

Fossil species

A prehistoric genus, Palaeotodus, is known from fossils. The prehistoric species, dated to the early Oligocene, was discovered in France and has also been found in Germany, suggesting the family was once far more widespread than it is today.^[4]

Species list

• Cuban Tody, Todus multicolor
• Broad-billed Tody, Todus subulatus
• Narrow-billed Tody, Todus angustirostris
• Jamaican Tody, Todus todus
• Puerto Rican Tody, Todus mexicanus

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Todidae

• Tody videos on the Internet Bird Collection