Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various African or Asian birds of the family Indicatoridae, some species of which lead people or animals to the nests of wild honeybees. The birds eat the wax and larvae that remain after the nest has been destroyed for its honey.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several
Old World tropical birds , of the familyIndicatoridae , that feed onhoney orbeeswax
Etymologies
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Examples
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Key species are the dwarf honeyguide Indicator pumilio, African green broadbill Pseudocalyptomena graueri, Lagden's bushshrike Malaconotus lagdeni, Kivu ground thrush Zoothera tanganjicae, Oberlander's ground thrush Z. oberlaenderi, Grauer's rush warbler Bradypterus graueri, Chaplin's flycatcher Muscicapa lendu and dusky crimsonwing Cryptospiza shelleyi.
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Listing the clutches he has taken of various host birds with greater honeyguide eggs in them, he says, “I am not a modest collector, as you know, I am a vast collector!”
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
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As we look at his honeyguide eggs and skins he claps his hands to his knees and rocks with mirth telling us of John Walpole-Bond, the Sussex bird man and egg collector of the early twentieth century.
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
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But Claire reported an occasion with Lazaro after I left Zambia when their attention was drawn by a greater honeyguide fluttering and croaking ahead of them.
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
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We bring to the dining table more dead honeyguides and blown honeyguide eggs than there are anywhere else in the world.
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
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Flannery zooms in on our mutually beneficial relationships with species like the greater African honeyguide, which uses a distinctive call and display to lure people to beehives, which then become a shared food source.
NYT > Home Page By ANDREW C. REVKIN 2011
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the greater honeyguide has even been recorded “eating candles”—Frank B. Gill, Ornithology, 3rd ed New York: W. H. Freeman, 2007, p.
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
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I’ve seen two honeyguide species—in both Zambia and South Africa—but neither was a guiding bird.
A Year on the Wing TIM DEE 2009
qms commented on the word honeyguide
His chicks in their stolen nests thrive;
He'll betray and then feast on a hive.
A stranger to pride
The sly honeyguide
Prefers not to work but connive.
April 18, 2015