The African terrestrial barbets are the bird genus Trachyphonus in the African barbet family (Lybiidae), which was formerly included in the Capitonidae and sometimes in the Ramphastidae. These birds are more terrestrial than the other African barbets and differ in some other respects too; they are thus separated in the subfamily Trachyphoninae.
Taxonomy The genus Trachyphonus was introduced in 1821 by the Italian naturalist Camillo Ranzani to accommodate a single species, Trachyphonus vaillantii, the crested barbet. This is the type species. The genus name is from Ancient Greek τραχυφωνος/trakhuphōnos meaning "harsh-voiced", from τραχυς/trakhus meaning "rough" and φωνη/phōnē meaning "sound" or "cry".
The genus contains four species: Image Common name Scientific name Distribution Crested barbet Trachyphonus vaillantii Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Yellow-breasted barbet Trachyphonus margaritatus Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan. Red-and-yellow barbet Trachyphonus erythrocephalus Kenya to north-east Tanzania. D'Arnaud's barbet Trachyphonus darnaudii West Africa
Extinct taxa The Early to Middle Miocene genus Capitonides from Europe, as well as "CMC 152", a distal carpometacarpus from the Middle Miocene locality of Grive-Saint-Alban (France), have been placed in this genus,Mlíkovský, Jirí (2002): Cenozoic Birds of the World, Part 1: Europe. Ninox Press, Prague. PDF fulltext but this move is not widely accepted. In the case of "CMC 152", this may be more warranted as this fragment differs from Capitonides and is more similar to extant (presumably Old World) barbets.Ballmann, Peter (1969): Les Oiseaux miocènes de la Grive-Saint-Alban (Isère) [The Miocene birds of Grive-Saint-Alban (Isère)]. Geobios 2: 157–204. [French with English abstract] (HTML abstract)
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