The Blue-Bellied Roller (Coracias cyanogaster) is a medium-sized bird.
The Blue-Bellied Roller is mainly blue, with a dark-green back, and white head, neck, and chest. It has blue wings. Its tail has streamers which trail behind it when it flies. It has a thick short black beak, dark eyes, and pale-yellow legs.
It grows to 28-30 centimetres (11-12 inches) tall, with a wingspan of 58 centimetres (23 inches).
The Blue-Bellied Roller is native to Africa, in a narrow belt of countries from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It prefers mature, moist savannah with trees, such as dry wooded areas and lowlands.
It feeds on insects, such as grasshoppers.
The Blue-Bellied Roller makes a nest in holes in trees. The female lays about 6 eggs.
[Location of photographs: Parc Zoologique de Paris in Bois de Vincennes, France]
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM