Africa's banana-eaters flash green and shout go-away
Turacos of family Musophagidae—"banana-eaters," including plantain-eaters and go-away-birds—are nearly unique among birds for being endemic to Africa (mousebirds are another). Semi-zygodactyl feet, weak flight, strong climbing, and fig-rich fruit diets define these noisy forest and savanna residents.
Southern Africans call both turacos and go-away-birds loeries. Long grouped with cuckoos, the family Musophagidae was lifted by the Sibley-Ahlquist scheme into its own order, Musophagiformes, a rank recent genetic work strongly backs; an older idea that they bridge the hoatzin and other birds has been disputed. Along with the mousebirds, they are one of very few bird families found only in Africa, living in forest, woodland and savanna south of the Sahara.
Their colour chemistry is unique. The green comes from turacoverdin, the only true green pigment yet known in birds; other birds fake green by pairing a yellow pigment with light-scattering feather structure. The crimson in the wings is turacin rather than the carotenoids other birds use. Both are built from porphyrins, and turacoverdin turns up in forest species but not in those of savanna and acacia country. Go-away-birds and plantain-eaters, by contrast, are mostly grey and white.
Most species measure 40 to 75 cm, with the great blue turaco as the big exception. Short rounded wings make them weak fliers, but strong legs let them run and clamber through branches, and juveniles even have wing claws for climbing. The outer toe can swing forward or back, though it usually sits at a right angle. Figs anchor a fruit diet topped up with leaves, buds and flowers. They travel in family groups of up to ten, lay two or three eggs in big stick nests, and go-away-birds are named for the sound of their piercing alarm.
Captive birds easily pass 30 years, and one at England's Cotswold Wildlife Park neared 37. Fossils hint the family arose in the Oligocene of central Europe or northern Africa before drifting south. The IOC list counts 23 species, while a 2020 revision proposed 33 taxa in seven genera. Across Africa the red flight feathers were royal status symbols, prized by Swazi and Zulu rulers.
Source: Turaco
