The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family, Meliphagidae, of small to medium-sized birds. The family includes the Australian chats, myzomelas, friarbirds, wattlebirds, miners and melidectes. They are most common in Australia and New Guinea, and found also in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea. Bali, on the other side of the Wallace Line, has a single species.
The sugarbirds are a small genus, Promerops, and family, Promeropidae, of passerine birds, restricted to southern Africa. In general appearance and habits, they resemble large, long-tailed sunbirds or some of the Australian honeyeaters, but are not closely related to the former and are even more distantly related to the latter. They have brownish plumage, the long downcurved bill typical of passerine nectar feeders, and long tail feathers.
Anthochaera is a genus of birds in the honeyeater family. The species are endemic to Australia and include the little wattlebird, the red wattlebird, the western wattlebird, and the yellow wattlebird. A molecular phylogenetic study has shown that the regent honeyeater also belongs in this genus.
The yellow-faced honeyeater is a small to medium-sized bird in the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae. It takes its common and scientific names from the distinctive yellow stripes on the sides of its head. Its loud, clear call often begins twenty or thirty minutes before dawn. It is widespread across eastern and southeastern Australia, in open sclerophyll forests from coastal dunes to high-altitude subalpine areas, and woodlands along creeks and rivers. Comparatively short-billed for a honeyeater, it is thought to have adapted to a diet of flies, spiders, and beetles, as well as nectar and pollen from the flowers of plants, such as Banksia and Grevillea, and soft fruits. It catches insects in flight as well as gleaning them from the foliage of trees and shrubs.
Bruce M. Beehler is an ornithologist and research associate of the Bird Division of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. Prior to this appointment, Beehler worked for Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Counterpart International, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The wattled smoky honeyeater or Foja honeyeater is a species of honeyeater with a sooty-grey plumage and a black bill. The most distinctive feature is arguably the extensive reddish-orange facial skin and pendulous wattle. In other members of the genus Melipotes, these sections only appear reddish when "flushed" and the wattle is smaller.
The striped honeyeater is a passerine bird of the honeyeater family, Meliphagidae, found in Australia. It is a medium-sized honeyeater, about 23 cm (9.1 in) in length. Both sexes are a light greyish brown with dark brown centres to the feathers, which give the appearance of stripes. The stripes are particularly distinct on the head and back of the neck. While it is found mainly in inland eastern Australia where it inhabits the drier open forest, it is also found in coastal swamp forest from southeast Queensland to the central coast of New South Wales.
The black honeyeater is a species of bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. The black honeyeater exhibits sexual dimorphism, with the male being black and white while the female is a speckled grey-brown; immature birds look like the female. The species is endemic to Australia, and ranges widely across the arid areas of the continent, through open woodland and shrubland, particularly in areas where the emu bush and related species occur.
The banded honeyeater is a species of honeyeater in the family Meliphagidae with a characteristic narrow black band across its white underparts. It is endemic to tropical northern Australia.
The grey honeyeater is a species of bird in the honeyeater family. It is an uncommon and little-known bird, an often overlooked endemic of remote areas in central Australia.
The yellow-throated honeyeater is a species of passerine bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. It is similar in behaviour and appearance to the white-eared honeyeater and is endemic to Australia's island state of Tasmania. It was formerly considered a pest of orchards.
The Eungella honeyeater is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae and is endemic to Australia.
Melidectes is a genus of bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. All six species are endemic to New Guinea. The generic name is derived from the Greek meli for honey and dektes for beggar or receiver.
Gilliard's honeyeater or the Bismarck honeyeater, is a bird species in the family Meliphagidae. It is the only species placed in the genus Vosea. It is endemic to New Britain. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.
Meliphaga is a genus of birds in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae.
The spangled honeyeater is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to the Huon Peninsula.
The common smoky honeyeater is a species of bird in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae. It is one of four species in the genus Melipotes, all closely related and forming a superspecies. After another similar species, the wattled smoky honeyeater, was discovered in 2005 in the Foja Mountains, it has also been called the common smoky honeyeater.
The Arfak honeyeater or bare-eyed honeyeater, is a species of bird in the family Meliphagidae. It is endemic to West Papua, Indonesia, where it lives in subtropical and tropical moist montane forest, at elevations ranging from 1,200 to 2,700 m.
There are two species of bird named smoky honeyeater.
The Vogelkop montane rain forests is a tropical moist forest ecoregion in western New Guinea. The ecoregion covers the mountains of western New Guinea's Bird's Head and Bomberai peninsulas.
