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here we have Cassin's honeybird! it's a honeyguide - while they may appear highly similar to passerines, these little critters are in the order Piciformes, a diverse clade which includes the woodpeckers and toucans! it dwells in western and central Africa - there are two subspecies populations, separated by the arid coast region in Benin known as the Dahomey Gap. those east of the Gap have slightly paler chests.

honeyguides get their name from one bird in their family, the greater honeyguide, which has developed the strategy of guiding large mammals, including humans, to bees' nests. when the mammal has gotten what it wants out of the hive, the honeyguide descends to eat the honey, larvae, and wax left over. in fact, it's rare in its penchant for wax, which makes up a large portion of its diet. most honeyguides do not guide, but the helpfulness of the greater honeyguide has colored how humans view the entire clade, and all of them do feed on insect wax.

honeyguides are also brood parasites, albeit quite a bit more brutal about it than other birds with a similar lifestyle. their egg is incubated internally for around a day before being laid in a nest, most often of cavity-nesting birds. the brief parental incubation ensures the honeyguide chick is further developed than the chicks of the host and will thus be able to overpower them. you may have heard of the egg tooth, a temporary structure on the beaks of infant birds that allows them to more easily break their eggshells? in the honeyguides, this attribute has been modified - their chicks hatch with a fully developed bill that bears a sharp hook on each mandible. this weapon is used to kill all other chicks in the host nest, be they still in their eggs or already hatched, before the honeyguide has even grown down or opened its eyes.

26 June 2026