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Pale-billed flowerpecker Dicaeum erythrorhynchos with a Muntingia calabura berry (Hyderabad, India)
Thick-billed flowerpecker Dicaeum agile on Helicteres isora

Dicaeum is a genus of birds in the flowerpecker family Dicaeidae, a group of passerines tropical southern Asia and Australasia from India east to the Philippines and south to Australia. Within the family Dicaeidae the genus Dicaeum is sister to a clade containing the genera Prionochilus and Pachyglossa.[2][3]

Its members are very small, stout, often brightly coloured birds, 10 to 18 cm in length, with short tails, short, thick curved bills and tubular tongues. The latter features reflect the importance of nectar in the diet of many species, although berries, spiders and insects are also taken.

2-4 eggs are laid, typically in a purse-like nest suspended from a tree.

Taxonomy

The genus Dicaeum was introduced by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1816.[4] The name is from the Ancient Greek dikaion. Cuvier claimed that this was a word for a very small Indian bird mentioned by the Roman author Claudius Aelianus but the word probably referred instead to the scarab beetle Scarabaeus sacer.[5] The type species was designated as the scarlet-backed flowerpecker by George Robert Gray in 1840.[6][7]

The genus contains the following 44 species:[8]

Image Scientific name Common name Distribution
– Spectacled flowerpecker Dicaeum dayakorum Borneo
– Golden-rumped flowerpecker Dicaeum annae Lesser Sundas
Yellow-sided flowerpecker Dicaeum aureolimbatum Sulawesi
Olive-capped flowerpecker Dicaeum nigrilore montane Mindanao
Yellow-crowned flowerpecker Dicaeum anthonyi montane northern Luzon
Flame-crowned flowerpecker Dicaeum kampalili montane Mindanao
Bicolored flowerpecker Dicaeum bicolor Philippines
Red-keeled flowerpecker Dicaeum australe Philippines
Black-belted flowerpecker Dicaeum haematostictum Western Visayas
Scarlet-collared flowerpecker Dicaeum retrocinctum Mindoro
– Cebu flowerpecker Dicaeum quadricolor Cebu
Orange-bellied flowerpecker Dicaeum trigonostigma Southeast Asia
– Buzzing flowerpecker Dicaeum hypoleucum Philippines
Pale-billed flowerpecker Dicaeum erythrorhynchos South Asia
Nilgiri flowerpecker Dicaeum concolor Western Ghats
Plain flowerpecker Dicaeum minullum Northeast India, southern China and Southeast Asia
– Andaman flowerpecker Dicaeum virescens Andaman Islands
Pygmy flowerpecker Dicaeum pygmaeum Philippines
– Crimson-crowned flowerpecker Dicaeum nehrkorni montane Sulawesi
– Buru flowerpecker Dicaeum erythrothorax Buru
– Halmahera flowerpecker Dicaeum schistaceiceps northern Moluccas
– Ashy flowerpecker Dicaeum vulneratum east-central Moluccas
Olive-crowned flowerpecker Dicaeum pectorale Raja Ampat Islands and northwest New-Guinea
– Red-capped flowerpecker Dicaeum geelvinkianum New Guinea and satellites
– Louisiade flowerpecker Dicaeum nitidum Louisiade archipelago
– Red-banded flowerpecker Dicaeum eximium eastern Bismarck archipelago
– Midget flowerpecker Dicaeum aeneum Solomon Islands
– Mottled flowerpecker Dicaeum tristrami Makira
– Black-fronted flowerpecker Dicaeum igniferum Lesser Sundas
– Red-chested flowerpecker Dicaeum maugei Selayar Islands and eastern Lesser Sundas
– Pink-breasted flowerpecker Dicaeum keiense southern Moluccas
Mistletoebird Dicaeum hirundinaceum Aru Islands and Australia
– Grey-sided flowerpecker Dicaeum celebicum Sulawesi
– Black-sided flowerpecker Dicaeum monticolum montane Borneo
Fire-breasted flowerpecker Dicaeum ignipectus Himalayas, southern China, Taiwan and Indochina
– Cambodian flowerpecker Dicaeum cambodianum eastern Thailand and Cambodia
– Sumatran flowerpecker Dicaeum beccarii Bukit Barisan
– Fire-throated flowerpecker Dicaeum luzoniense Philippines
– Javan flowerpecker Dicaeum sanguinolentum montane Java and Bali
– Flores flowerpecker Dicaeum rhodopygiale Flores
– Sumba flowerpecker Dicaeum wilhelminae Sumba
– Timor flowerpecker Dicaeum hanieli Timor
Scarlet-backed flowerpecker Dicaeum cruentatum southern China and Southeast Asia
Scarlet-headed flowerpecker Dicaeum trochileum Bangka Island, southern Sumatra/Borneo and Java

References

  1. ^ “Dicaeidae”. aviansystematics.org. The Trust for Avian Systematics. Retrieved 2023-07-16.
  2. ^ Nyária, Árpád S.; Peterson, A. Townsend; Rice, Nathan H.; Moyle, Robert G. (2009). “Phylogenetic relationships of flowerpeckers (Aves: Dicaeidae): Novel insights into the evolution of a tropical passerine clade”. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 53 (3): 613–19. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.06.014. hdl:1808/6569. PMID 19576993.
  3. ^ Salomonsen, Finn (1960). “Notes on flowerpeckers (Aves, Dicaeidae). 2, The primitive species of the genus Dicaeum. American Museum novitates ; no. 1991”. American Museum Novitates (1991). hdl:2246/3544.
  4. ^ Cuvier, Georges (1816). Le Règne animal distribué d’après son organisation : pour servir de base a l’histoire naturelle des animaux et d’introduction a l’anatomie comparée (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Déterville. pp. 410–411. The volume has the year 1817 printed on the title page but was published in 1816. See: Dickinson, E.C.; Overstreet, L.K.; Dowsett, R.J.; Bruce, M.D. (2011). Priority! The Dating of Scientific Names in Ornithology: a Directory to the literature and its reviewers. Northampton, UK: Aves Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-9568611-1-5.
  5. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  6. ^ Gray, George Robert (1840). A List of the Genera of Birds : with an Indication of the Typical Species of Each Genus. London: R. and J.E. Taylor. p. 13.
  7. ^ Paynter, Raymond A. Jr, ed. (1986). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 12. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. p. 174.
  8. ^ Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (February 2025). “Dippers, leafbirds, flowerpeckers, sunbirds”. IOC World Bird List Version 15.1. International Ornithologists’ Union. Retrieved 16 March 2025.