Coraciidae

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.