Indicator (genus)

Indicator honeyguides are brood parasites which lay eggs in a nest of another species, in a series of about five during five to seven days. Most favour hole-nesting species, often the related barbets and woodpeckers. Nestlings have been known to physically eject their host's chicks from the nest, and they have hooks on their beaks with which they puncture the hosts' eggs or kill the nestlings, by repeated lacerations if not a fatal stab.

Taxonomy

The genus Indicator was introduced in 1815 by the English naturalist James Francis Stephens with the type species, by tautonymy, as Indicator sparrmanii Stephens, a junior synonym of Cuculus indicator Sparrman, the greater honeyguide. The genus name is from Latin indicator, indicatoris meaning "guide" or "one that points out".