Hoopoes are unmistakable medium-sized birds with pinkish body feathers and rounded black-and-white wings. They have an erectile crest and a long curved bill with which they probe for mostly inverterbrate food. The family contains only one genus, Upupa, within which some authorities consider there to be only a single species, U. epops, though other authorities split the forms found on the African mainland and in Madagascar as separate species from that found in Europe and Asia.The family is unrepresented in the New World. U. epops occurs annually in the British Isles and has bred on occasion.