Jacamars
Piciformes: woodpeckers, toucans, and jacamars. Cavity nesters with two backward toes.
Zygodactylous insectivores with long, thin bills. Often glossy and brightly-colored. Some authorities elevate jacamars (and their puffbird cousins) into their own Order, Galbuliformes.
Stiff-billed birds that can hammer through bark and wood to find insects, and also to excavate a nesting cavity, or just to make noise to attract a mate. Most have very long, prehensile tongues which allow them to capture insects underneath bark even if they do not drill in precisely the right spot, or to scoop up ants from an anthill. To allow tongues to extend up to three times the length of the bill, the hyoid bones in some species are so long they wrap around the back of the skull and all the way to the nostrils. Contrary to popular belief, these elongated hyoids don't seem to be important in absorbing the shocks from hammering into wood. Some of the longest are in flickers, who don't do much hammering.
Woodpeckers are zygodactylous - they have two forward-facing toes and two backward-facing toes, enabling them to perch upside-down or sideways.
Fruit-eating birds with famously large, usually colorful, beaks. Endemic to New World tropics.
