Turacos are also called touracos, plantain eaters, go-away birds and louries. They are beautiful birds that come in their own family and order ... the Musophagidae of the Musophagiformes. All the turacos live in Africa, and the vast majority in forests. Many of them have restricted ranges, and some are endangered.

Turacos fall roughly in four groups. The first group contains only a single species, the Great Blue Plantain Eater. The next group is the purplish/violet group, containing the violet plantain eater, and Ross' Lourie. The next group is the green group, containing the majority of louries and turacos; the last group is the grey group, containing the go-away birds. The grey group live in savannah areas; the other, more brightly coloured groups live in forests.

Turacos are unique among birds in that their feathers contain two kinds of pigments found in no other bird groups. The one is a green pigment called turacoverdin, the other is a red pigment called turacin. All turacos have the green pigment ... though it is 'masked' in the go-away birds whose plumage looks grey, white or black ... but only the green and violet turacos have the red pigment. This copper-based pigment occurs in the primary feathers of the wings. It is slightly soluble in water ... if you put a turaco primary feather in water, after a while the water will turn pink! These feathers become dull with the passage of time after the birds shed them ... but on the birds they are the most brilliant brilliant red imaginable. When a turaco's wing is folded, the red feathers are hidden beneath the green wing coverts. The bird is thus well camouflaged between the foliage of trees. When the turaco flies, however, suddenly this brilliant bright red appears as if out of nowhere!

Seeing turacos in forests is a wonderful experience. I've seen them many times. Sometimes you see them quite close to you, sitting relaxedly or running about on branches in the shade. They will go about their business in one tree for a while ... and then comes the good part! They will launch themselves off a branch and glide to another tree ... and show off those beautiful red wing feathers! Sometimes turacos fly overhead, with the sun shining through their feathers ... that is truly spectacular!

So far I've seen four species of turaco in the wild: the Grey Lourie Corythaixoides concolor, the Knysna Lourie Tauraco corythaix, the Livingstone's Lourie Tauraco livingstonii and the Purplecrested Lourie Musophaga porphyreolopha.

Here are good turaco links, with pictures, so you can see what they look like:

A page with info on keeping Turacos in captivity

Some unusually beautiful Turaco pictures here

A WildWatch page on Turacos ... pictures, but small ones.

GeoZoo's Turaco Page ... few pictures (if you know of some good ones, please help them out!) but the best one of a Whitecrested Turaco I've seen so far, and a complete list of species.

This idiotic site puts a picture of a Red-crested Turaco and calls it a Lady Ross' Turaco! But the picture is not bad:
Red-crested Turaco Wrongly Labeled

A Spanish Page with White-crested and Ross' Turaco pics

This site shows portrayals of almost all the Turaco species on stamps - not always very good, though

A book cover with a great pic of a coupla Bare-faced Go Away Birds

Here are some particularly beautiful turaco photographs - Indeed, the entire site is great for bird pics!