Turaco

Female white-bellied go-away-bird, Crinifer leucogaster

Most turacos are medium-sized birds – an exception being the large great blue turaco – with long tails and short, rounded wings. They range in length from 40 to 75 cm (16–30 in). Their flight is weak, but they are strong climbers and are able to move nimbly on branches and through vegetation. Juveniles have claws on the wings that help them climb.[9][10][11] They have a unique foot arrangement, where the fourth toe can be brought around to the back of the foot where it almost touches the first toe, or brought around so that it is near the second and third. In spite of this flexibility the toe is actually usually held at right angles to the axis of the foot.[12]

The plumage of go-away-birds and plantain-eaters is mainly grey and white. The turacos on the other hand are brightly coloured birds, usually blue, green or purple. The green colour in turacos comes from turacoverdin, the only true green pigment in birds known to date. Other "greens" in bird colors result from a yellow pigment such as some carotenoid, combined with the prismatic physical structure of the feather itself which scatters the light in a particular way and giving a blue colour.

Turaco wings contain the red pigment turacin, unlike in other birds where red colour is due to carotenoids. Both pigments are derived from porphyrins and only known from the Musophagidae into the 21st century, but especially the little-researched turacoverdin might have relatives in other birds. The incidence of turacoverdin in relation to habitat is of interest to scientists, being present in forest species but absent in savanna- and acacia-living species.[12]

Little is known about the longevity of wild turacos, but in captivity they are proving to be exceptionally long-lived, easily living to 30 years in captivity. A bird in the Cotswold Wildlife Park collection in England approached its 37th year.[13]

The fossil genus Veflintornis is known from the Middle Miocene of Grive-Saint-Alban (France). It was established as Apopempsis by Pierce Brodkorb in 1971, but this is pre-empted by Schenkling's 1903 use of the name for some beetles. "Apopempsis" africanus (Early Miocene of Kenya) might also belong there.[14]

Further fossil material of putative musophagids was found in Egypt as well as in Late Oligocene deposits at Gaimersheim in Germany and Middle Miocene deposits at Grive-Saint-Alban[15] and Vieux-Collonges (each in France).[14] While it is not entirely certain that these fossils are indeed of turacos, it nonetheless appears as if the family evolved in the Oligocene of central Europe or perhaps northern Africa, and later on shifted its distribution southwards. The climate of those European regions during the late Paleogene was not too dissimilar to that of (sub)tropical Africa today; the Saharan desert was not yet present and the distance across the Mediterranean was not much more than what it is today. Thus such a move south may well have been a very slow and gradual shifting of a large and continuous range.

Great blue turaco
Corythaeola cristata

The Early Eocene Promusophaga was initially believed to be the oldest record of the turacos; it was eventually reconsidered a distant relative of the ostrich and is now in the ratite family Lithornithidae. Filholornis from the Late Eocene or Early Oligocene of France is occasionally considered a musophagid, but its relationships have always been disputed. It is not often considered a turaco in more recent times and has been synonymised with the presumed gruiform Talantatos, though it is not certain whether this will become widely accepted.[14]

The phylogenetic analysis conducted by Field & Hsiang (2018) indicated that Eocene (Wasatchian) species Foro panarium known from the Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation (Wyoming, United States) was a stem-turaco.[16]

The crimson flight feathers of turacos have been treasured as status symbols to royalty and paramount chiefs all over Africa. They are recorded as being valued by the Swazi and Zulu royal families.[21] British ornithologist Constantine Walter Benson, who collected heavily in Africa, is alleged to have tasted every species he collected; he claimed that turacos tasted the best.[22]

• Ballmann, Peter (1969). "Les Oiseaux miocènes de la Grive-Saint-Alban (Isère) [The Miocene birds of Grive-Saint-Alban, Isère]". Geobios. 2: 157–204. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(69)80005-7. (French with English abstract)
• Hughes, Janice M.; Baker, Allan J. (1999). "Phylogenetic relationships of the enigmatic hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) resolved using mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences" (PDF). Molecular Biology and Evolution. 16 (9): 1300–1307. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a026220. PMID 10486983.
• International Turaco Society (Magazines 1993–2012), also website 2001, www.turacos.org
• Mlíkovský, Jirí (2002): Cenozoic Birds of the World, Part 1: Europe. Ninox Press, Prague. ISBN 80-901105-3-8 PDF fulltext Archived 2011-05-20 at the Wayback Machine
• Newton, Alfred (1911). "Touracou" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 102. This is based on a now outdated classification, but does provide a detailed description of the morphology of some species.
• Sorenson, Michael D.; Oneal, Elen; García-Moreno, Jaime; Mindell, David P. (2003). "More Taxa, More Characters: The Hoatzin Problem is Still Unresolved". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 20 (9): 1484–1499. doi:10.1093/molbev/msg157. PMID 12777516. S2CID 24173060. Supplementary Material

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Musophagidae.

• International Touraco Society
• Turaco videos on the Internet Bird Collection