The Rollers are an Old World family of near passerinebirds. They resemble crows in size and build, but are more closely related to the kingfishers and bee-eaters. They share the colourful appearance of those groups, blues and browns predominating. The two inner front toes are connected, but not the outer one.
These are insect eaters, usually catching their prey in the air. They often perch prominently whilst hunting, like giant shrikes. The group gets its name from the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform.
These are birds of warm climates. They nest in an unlined tree-hole, and lay 2-4 eggs.
On the basis of the results of their study, the authors suggested classification of Brachypteracias squamiger (see Langrand 2001, concerning the nomenclature of the species name) into the genus Geobiastes in which it was originally described.
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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