They are essentially tropical New World birds, although the range of two species just reaches the United States.

A number of females lay their eggs in the nest and then share incubation and feeding.

The genus Crotophaga was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae to accommodate a single species, the smooth-billed ani (Crotophaga ani).

[4] Linnaeus cited the Irish physician Patrick Browne who in 1756 in his The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica had used the name Crotophaga and remarked that smooth-billed anis "live chiefly upon ticks and other small vermin; and may be frequently seen jumping about all cows and oxen in the fields".

[5] The name "Ani" was used in 1648 by German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.