Tody
Encyclopedia
The todies are a family
, Todidae, of Caribbean
bird
s in the order Coraciiformes
, which also includes the kingfisher
s, bee-eater
s and roller
s. 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.
and resemble kingfishers, with green heads, backs and wings, red throats (absent in immature Puerto Rican, Broad-billed, and Narrow-billed Todies) 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. Todies are highly vocal, except that the Jamaican Tody seldom calls in the non-breeding season (August to November); they give simple, unmusical buzzing notes, beeps, and guttural rattles, puffing their throats out with every call. Their wings produce a "strange, whirring rattle", though mostly when courting or defending territory in the Puerto Rican Tody.
s 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
) 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). Their activity is greatest in the morning when sunny weather follows rain, and in March and September.
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.
s. 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.
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Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
, Todidae, of Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s in the order Coraciiformes
Coraciiformes
The Coraciiformes are a group of usually colorful near passerine birds including the kingfishers, the Hoopoe, the bee-eaters, the rollers, and the hornbills...
, which also includes the kingfisher
Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a group of small to medium sized brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species being found in the Old World and Australia...
s, bee-eater
Bee-eater
The bee-eaters are a group of near-passerine birds in the family Meropidae. Most species are found in Africa and Asia but others occur in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies, and usually elongated central tail feathers...
s and roller
Roller
The rollers are an Old World family, Coraciidae, of near passerine birds. The group gets its name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. Rollers resemble crows in size and build, and share the colourful appearance of kingfishers and...
s. The family has one genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
, Todus. These are small near passerine
Near passerine
Near passerine or higher land-bird assemblage are terms often given to arboreal birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines due to ecological similarities; the group corresponds to some extent with the Anomalogonatae of Garrod All near passerines are land birds...
species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of forests of the Greater Antilles
Greater Antilles
The Greater Antilles are one of three island groups in the Caribbean. Comprising Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico, the Greater Antilles constitute almost 90% of the land mass of the entire West Indies.-Greater Antilles in context :The islands of the Caribbean Sea, collectively known as...
: Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
with adjacent islands have one species each, and Hispaniola
Hispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
has two, the Broad-billed Tody
Broad-billed Tody
The Broad-billed Tody, Todus subulatus, is one of the two species of tody native to the island of Hispaniola. It can be identified by its small size, stubby beak, ruby-red throat, and green back....
in the lowlands (including Gonâve Island
Gonâve Island
Gonâve Island is an island of Haiti located to the west-northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Gulf of Gonâve. It is the largest of the Hispaniolan satellite islands, situated off the mainland...
) and the Narrow-billed Tody
Narrow-billed Tody
The Narrow-billed Tody is a species of bird in the Todidae family.It is found in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montanes and heavily degraded former forest....
in the highlands.
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 plumagePlumage
Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season. Within species there can also be a...
and resemble kingfishers, with green heads, backs and wings, red throats (absent in immature Puerto Rican, Broad-billed, and Narrow-billed Todies) 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
Beak
The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...
(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. Todies are highly vocal, except that the Jamaican Tody seldom calls in the non-breeding season (August to November); they give simple, unmusical buzzing notes, beeps, and guttural rattles, puffing their throats out with every call. Their wings produce a "strange, whirring rattle", though mostly when courting or defending territory in the Puerto Rican Tody.
Diet
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). Todies typically sit on a low small twig, singly or in pairs, keeping still or possibly stepping sideways like parrotParrot
Parrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three families: the Psittacidae , the Cacatuidae and the Strigopidae...
s 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
Puerto Rican Tody
The Puerto Rican Tody is a tody endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. Despite is scientific name, Todus mexicanus, it is endemic to Puerto Rico...
) diagonally upward to glean
Gleaning (birds)
Gleaning is a term for a feeding strategy by birds in which they catch invertebrate prey, mainly arthropods, by plucking them from foliage or the ground, from crevices such as rock faces and under the eaves of houses, or even, as in the case of ticks and lice, from living animals. This behavior is...
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). Their activity is greatest in the morning when sunny weather follows rain, and in March and September.
Breeding
Like most of the Coraciiformes, todies nest in tunnels, which they dig with their beaks and feet in steep banks or rotten tree trunks. The tunnel is 30 cm long in the Cuban and Narrow-billed Todies, 30 to 60 cm in the Broad-billed Tody 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 altricialAltricial
Altricial, meaning "requiring nourishment", refers to a pattern of growth and development in organisms which are incapable of moving around on their own soon after hatching or being born...
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.
Fossil species
A prehistoric genus, Palaeotodus, is known from fossilFossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
s. The prehistoric species, dated to the early Oligocene
Oligocene
The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
, was discovered in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and has also been found in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, suggesting the family was once far more widespread than it is today.
Species list
- Cuban TodyCuban TodyThe Cuban Tody is a bird species in the family Todidae that is restricted to Cuba and adjacent islands. The species is characterized by small size , large head relative to body size, and a thin, pointed bill...
, Todus multicolor - Broad-billed TodyBroad-billed TodyThe Broad-billed Tody, Todus subulatus, is one of the two species of tody native to the island of Hispaniola. It can be identified by its small size, stubby beak, ruby-red throat, and green back....
, Todus subulatus - Narrow-billed TodyNarrow-billed TodyThe Narrow-billed Tody is a species of bird in the Todidae family.It is found in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist montanes and heavily degraded former forest....
, Todus angustirostris - Jamaican TodyJamaican TodyFound only in Jamaica, the Jamaican Tody is a small and colourful bird, predominantly green above, with a red throat and yellow underparts, with some pink on the sides. It has a large head and a long, flat bill. It perches on small branches, with its bills unturned and, like its Cuban relative ,...
, Todus todus - Puerto Rican TodyPuerto Rican TodyThe Puerto Rican Tody is a tody endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. Despite is scientific name, Todus mexicanus, it is endemic to Puerto Rico...
, Todus mexicanus
External links
- Tody videos on the Internet Bird Collection