File:Red-legged Honeycreeper RWD12b.jpg
male Red-legged Honeycreeper.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Thraupidae
Genus: Cyanerpes
Oberholser, 1899

Four, all classed as Least Concern




The Green Honeycreeper is called a Honeycreeper, but belongs to the monotypic Chlorophanes genus. It has a larger, stouter beak than the Cyanerpes group, and is less heavily dependent on nectar. The Golden-collared Honeycreeper, is also a honeycreeper, but is monotypic in the genus Iridophanes.


A commonly repeated, yet false, belief about the various Honeycreeper species is that some of them lay black eggs.[1] This idea was first made known in the scientific community with the 1899 publication of Nehrkorn's egg catalog; Nehrkorn's claim was cited in ornithological literature for many years without verification, but by the 1940s it was established that none of the members of Cyanerpes lay such eggs.



  1. ^ Eugene Eisenmann (1953). "What Bird Lays Black Eggs?". Auk. 70 (3): 362–363. doi:10.2307/4081327. 

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