Families overview for this order
- Small to medium-sized slender perching birds with small feet, rounded wings, and very long bill used to catch insects in flight; plumage varies from brightly coloured and iridescent to fairly dull.
- Neotropical.
- Wooded, mostly lowland habitats.
- Small to medium-sized perching birds with large head, short rounded wings, stocky body, small feet, and narrow tail; plumage soft, and drab to contrasting.
- Neotropical.
- Wooded, mostly lowland habitats.
- Medium-sized to large, colourful arboreal birds with huge bill and long tail.
- Neotropical, with greatest diversity in Amazonia.
- Tropical forest, mostly in lowlands, but reaching temperate zone in mountains; one species ranges into woodland.
Traditionally, all barbets were lumped into a single family under this name. In recent decades, increasing weight of evidence #R#R#R#R indicates: separate families should be recognized for species from America (Capitonidae), Asia (Megalaimidae) and Africa (Lybiidae); American barbets further divisible by recognition of aberrant family Semnornithidae; and American barbets are closer to toucans than to Old World barbets.
- Small to moderately large, robust arboreal birds with strong bill and sharp claws.
- Pantropical, with greatest diversity in Afrotropical.
- Forest, woodland and scrub.
Traditionally lumped into Capitonidae (which see).
Traditionally lumped into Capitonidae (which see).
- Medium-small, rather nondescript arboreal birds with small head, short bill, nostrils often raised, and generally rather drab plumage with white outer-tail markings.
- Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.
- Forest and woodland, including streamside trees in near-desert; from lowlands to near tree-line in mountains.
- Small to rather large birds with straight medium-length bill, short legs with four long toes, some species with only three toes; tail of most long, with strong central feathers; long tongue with barbed tip.
- Holarctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical and Oriental.
- Forest, woodland and grassland, from cold temperate zone to tropics.