Honeyguide (family Indicatoridae)

BirdAfricaMutualism

Overview

Honeyguides (family Indicatoridae) are small, mostly drab birds of Africa and parts of Asia with one of the most remarkable behaviours in the entire bird world. The greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator), shown here, will actively lead people to wild bees' nests: calling and flitting from tree to tree, it guides honey-hunters to a hive, waits while they break it open and take the honey, and then feeds on the leftover beeswax and bee larvae. It is one of the few wild animals that cooperates with humans to mutual benefit, and the partnership is ancient.

Honeyguides are also brood parasites: like cuckoos, the females lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving the hosts to raise their young — and the honeyguide chick often kills its nest-mates.

Note: “honeyguide” covers a family; the guiding behaviour is best known in the greater honeyguide. Treat general statements as approximate and verify against authoritative sources.

Habitat & Range

Honeyguides live across sub-Saharan Africa, with a few species in South and Southeast Asia, in woodland, savanna, forest, and bush. They occur wherever there are bees' nests to exploit and host birds to parasitise, and the guiding greater honeyguide is found in open woodland and savanna across much of Africa.

Diet

Honeyguides are unusual in eating beeswax — they are among the very few birds able to digest it — along with bee eggs, larvae, and other insects. The guiding species rely on having a partner (a person, or in some accounts a honey badger or other animal) break open a bees' nest, then feed on the exposed wax and grubs. Even away from raided hives, honeyguides take wax, insects, and other small food items.

Behavior

The greater honeyguide's guiding behaviour is extraordinary: it approaches people with a special chattering call, then flies ahead from tree to tree, pausing and calling to lead them toward a bees' nest, sometimes over a considerable distance. In parts of Africa, human honey-hunters even use specific calls to summon honeyguides, and the two communicate back and forth — a genuine, learned partnership in which the bird gets at the wax and grubs it cannot reach alone. Honeyguides are also brood parasites: a female lays her eggs in the nest of another bird (often a barbet, bee-eater, or similar hole-nester), and the honeyguide chick, armed with sharp bill hooks as a hatchling, typically kills the host's own young so it monopolises the care. These two traits make honeyguides one of the most behaviourally fascinating bird families.

Human Interaction & Conservation

Honeyguides have a uniquely close, mutually beneficial relationship with people in parts of Africa, where the guiding partnership has been documented for centuries and is a celebrated example of human–wildlife cooperation; sadly it has faded in places as traditional honey-hunting declines. Most honeyguides remain reasonably widespread, though habitat change can affect them and their hosts. They are harmless to people. (A long-repeated claim that honeyguides also guide honey badgers is often cited but remains debated.) Consult the IUCN Red List for species-specific status.

More photos of the honeyguide