They are related to the kingfishers, bee_eaters and rollers. They most resemble the latter group, and are sometimes considered a sub-family of the true rollers. They share the generally crow-like size and build of that group, and also hunt reptiles and large insects. They are more terrestrial than the Coracidae species, and this is reflected in their longer legs and shorter, more rounded wings.
They lack the highly colourful appearance of the true rollers, and are duller in appearance. They are much more elusive and shy than their relatives, and are normally difficult to find in the Madagascan forests. Often the hooting breeding call is all that betrays their presence.
These birds nest as solitary pairs in holes in the ground which they excavate themselves, unlike the true rollers, which rarely nest in ground holes and even then do not dig their own nests.
(2001) presented a phylogeny of the Brachypteraciidae (ground rollers) that yielded evidence for paraphyly of the genus Brachypteracias.
Fossil members of either the Brachypteraciidae or the Coraciidae are thus unknown from early Tertiary deposits and there is no reason to assume that the Brachypteraciidae evolved outside Madagascar.
Coraciidae and Brachypteraciidae most likely diverged after the early Tertiary period, which is in concordance with the rather low mitochondrial sequence divergence between Brachypteraciidae and Coraciidae reported by Kirchman et al.
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