The
Pacific kingfisher (
Todiramphus sacer) is a medium-sized bird in the
kingfisher family, Alcedinidae. It belongs to the subfamily Halcyoninae, the
tree kingfishers, and is found in the South Pacific islands, including American Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. The Pacific kingfisher was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist
Johann Friedrich Gmelin and was initially placed in the genus
Alcedo, but since 1827 it has been placed in the genus
Todiramphus. Formerly considered to be a subspecies of the
collared kingfisher (
T. chloris), a
molecular phylogenetic study published in 2015 found that
T. chloris was
paraphyletic. The Pacific kingfisher perches almost motionless for long periods waiting for prey and its diet includes insects, worms, snails, shrimps, frogs, lizards, small fish and sometimes other small birds and eggs. This Pacific kingfisher was photographed in the
Colo-i-Suva Forest Reserve, Fiji, perching with prey in its beak.
Photograph credit: JJ Harrison
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