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Kingfishers or Alcedinidae are a family of brightly colored small to medium sized birds of the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropics of Africa, Asia and Oceania. The family has 114 species and is divided into three subfamilies and 19 genera. All kingfishers have large heads, long, sharp, pointed beaks, short legs, and stubby tails. Most of the species have bright plumage with slight differences between the sexes. Most species are tropical, and a small majority are found only in forests. They consume a variety of prey, usually caught while descending from the perch. While kingfishers generally believed to live near rivers and eat fish, many species live far from water and eat small invertebrates. Like other members of their order, they nest in cavities, usually in tunnels dug in natural or artificial banks of the ground. Some kingfishers nest in arboreal termite nests. Several species are under threat of extinction, mainly insular. In the UK, the word “kingfisher” normally refers to the common kingfisher.

The smallest species of kingfisher is the African dwarf kingfisher (Ispidina lecontei), which averages 10 cm in length and weighs 9 to 12 g (0.32 to 0.42 oz). The largest kingfisher in Africa is the giant kingfisher (Megaceryle maxima), which ranges from 42 to 46 cm in length and weighs 255–426 g (9.0–15.0 ounces). The famous Australian kingfisher, known as the laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), is the heaviest female species, weighing about 500 grams (18 ounces).

Most kingfishers have bright plumage, most often green and blue. The brightness of colors is not a product of the iridescence (except in the American kingfishers) or pigments, but is due to the structure of the feathers, which causes the blue light to scatter (Tyndall effect). Most species have no obvious sex differences; when differences arise, they are very small (less than 10%).

The kingfishers have long, dagger-like bills. The beak is usually longer and tighter in species that fish, and shorter and wider for species that hunt for prey off the ground. The largest and most atypical bill is that of the shovel-billed kookaburra, which is used to dig through the forest floor in search of prey. They usually have short legs, although terrestrial species have longer tarsi. Most species have four toes, three of which point forward. Most types of irises are dark brown. kingfishers have excellent eyesight; they have binocular vision and are considered particularly good color vision. They limited their eye movement in their eye sockets, instead using head movements to track their prey.

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