Sapphire spint

Sapphire spint

We are delighted that Tom Macke has taken on the sponsorship of the Sapphire Bee-eater (Merops muelleri).

They are colourful, have long beaks and a slender body: bee-eaters - or spints, as they are also known - are actually unmistakable.

Most of the 26 species in the Meropidae family are found in Africa. Although they do not feed exclusively on bees, as their name might suggest, they prey on all kinds of flying insects - basically from the air. In contrast to many other birds, however, special behavioural adaptations enable bee-eaters to hunt such hymenopterans with poisonous stings: before they eat their prey, the birds hit and rub it with their beak on a branch or other hard surface until the sting, into which all of the insect's poison is pumped as a result of the rough treatment, falls off.

Named after the German zoologist and explorer Johann Wilhelm von Müller, the bee-eater or sapphire spinet Merops muelleri is a typical rainforest inhabitant in parts of West and Central Africa, which successfully hunts its flying prey even within dense undergrowth.
Like all bee-eaters, sapphire bee-eaters nest in burrows, which they make with their long beaks in suitable places such as embankments, the root balls of fallen tree trunks or in cavities on the forest floor.