Origins and Taxonomy
The previous view that the Megaceryle kingfishers arose in the New World from a specialist fish-eating Alcedinid ancestor which crossed the Bering Strait and gave rise to this genus and the American green kingfishers Chloroceryle, with a large crested species later, in the Pliocene, crossing the Atlantic Ocean to give rise to the Giant and Crested Kingfishers (Fry & Fry, 2000) is probably wrong. Rather, it now seems that the genus probably originates in the Old World, possibly Africa, and the ancestor of the Belted and Ringed Kingfishers made the ocean crossing (Moyle, 2006).
The Megaceryle kingfishers were formerly placed in Ceryle with the Pied Kingfisher, but the latter is genetically closer to the American green kingfishers.
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
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