Alcedo

Alcedo is a genus of birds in the kingfisher subfamily Alcedininae. The genus was introduced by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae. The type species is the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis). Alcedo is the Latin for "kingfisher".

==Species== The genus contains the following eight species: {| class="wikitable " |- ! Image !! Scientific name !! Common name !! Distribution |- |120px||Alcedo coerulescens||Cerulean kingfisher || Indonesia. |- |||Alcedo euryzona|| Javan blue-banded kingfisher || Java |- |120px||Alcedo peninsulae|| Malaysian blue-banded kingfisher || Myanmar, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, southwestern Thailand and Borneo |- |120px||Alcedo quadribrachys ||Shining-blue kingfisher || Senegal and Gambia to west central Nigeria to Kenya, northwest Zambia and north Angola |- |120px||Alcedo meninting||Blue-eared kingfisher|| Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia |- |120px||Alcedo atthis || Common kingfisher || across Eurasia and North Africa |- |120px||Alcedo semitorquata|| Half-collared kingfisher|| southern and eastern Africa. |- |120px||Alcedo hercules||Blyth's kingfisher || China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bhutan in northeastern India, and a vagrant in Bangladesh and eastern Nepal |- |}