Rollers

Rollers
Indian roller from Maharashtra, India
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Coraciiformes
Family:	Coraciidae Rafinesque, 1815
Genera
Coracias Eurystomus

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 bee-eaters, blues and pinkish or cinnamon browns predominating. The two inner front toes are connected, but not the outer one.

They are mainly insect eaters, with Eurystomus species taking their prey on the wing, and those of the genus Coracias diving from a perch to catch food items from on the ground, like giant shrikes.

Although living rollers are birds of warm climates in the Old World, fossil records show that rollers were present in North America during the Eocene. They are monogamous and nest in an unlined hole in a tree or in masonry, and lay 2–4 eggs in the tropics, 3–6 at higher latitudes. The eggs, which are white, hatch after 17–20 days, and the young remain in the nest for approximately another 30 days.

The roller family Coraciidae was introduced (as Coracinia) by the French polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. It is one of nine families in the order Coraciiformes, which also includes the motmots, bee-eaters, todies, ground-rollers, cuckoo roller and three families of kingfishers. Apart from the ground-rollers, these families do not appear to be particularly closely related to the rollers, and the Coraciiformes are therefore probably polyphyletic. The Coraciiformes family gets its scientific name for Latin coracium, "like a raven", and the English name "roller" from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. Rollers are divided into two genera as follows.

The roller family has two extant genera as follows:

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Wikipedia