Cuculidae – Cuckoos & allies
Shy birds with really loud voices making them hard to spot but easy to hear
This family includes roadrunners, coucals, couas, malkohas, guiras, anis, and cuckoos. They are mostly forest-dwelling, arboreal species and terrestrial species like roadrunners and coucals. Birds from this order are found all over the world except Antarctica.
They are mainly insectivorous birds, but some larger species eat small vertebrates like lizards and snakes. Apart from their distinctive calls, most cuckoos are best known for brood parasitism, where the female lays eggs in the nests of other birds for them to raise. Some species even lay eggs that resemble their hosts’!
As with many species, birds from Cuculiformes are threatened by habitat loss.
Genera in this family
The birds of this genus are notorious for laying their eggs in other birds’ nests
