The Acridotheres mynas are generally dark or dull birds with fluted calls like most starlings; the sexes are similar.

They walk and hop, and may share adaptations along with the Sturnus starlings that have modifications to the skull and its muscles for open bill probing or prying.

Several species have frontal crests which become covered with pollen when the birds take nectar from flowers, and may play a role in pollination.

They presumably were isolated in about their current range when the evolutionary radiation to which they belonged - including the wattled starling and the Sturnia species - was fragmented by desertification at the start of the Early Pliocene, as Earth turned towards the last ice age 5 million years ago.

The placement of the white-faced starling (Sturornis albofrontatus) is more obscure, though it is generally not described as being closely related to the Acridotheres mynas.