Hoopoes (/ˈhuːpuː, ˈhuːpoʊ/) are colourful birds found across Africa, Asia, and Europe, notable for their distinctive "crown" of feathers which can be raised or lowered at will.

The Eurasian hoopoe is common in its range and has a large population, so it is evaluated as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The genus Upupa was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

It then included three other species with long curved bills:[13] Formerly, the greater hoopoe-lark was also considered to be a member of this genus (as Upupa alaudipes).

[19] The hoopoe has two basic requirements of its habitat: bare or lightly vegetated ground on which to forage and vertical surfaces with cavities (such as trees, cliffs or even walls, nestboxes, haystacks, and abandoned burrows[19]) in which to nest.

[18] Hoopoes make seasonal movements in response to rain in some regions such as in Ceylon and in the Western Ghats.

[25] The diet of the hoopoe is mostly composed of insects, although small reptiles, frogs and plant matter such as seeds and berries are sometimes taken as well.

More rarely they will feed in the air, where their strong and rounded wings make them fast and manoeuverable, in pursuit of numerous swarming insects.

Insect larvae, pupae and mole crickets are detected by the bill and either extracted or dug out with the strong feet.

Hoopoes will also feed on insects on the surface, probe into piles of leaves, and even use the bill to lever large stones and flake off bark.

Larger prey items are beaten against the ground or a preferred stone to kill them and remove indigestible body parts such as wings and legs.

The eggs are round and milky blue when laid, but quickly discolour in the increasingly dirty nest.

[23] From the age of six days, nestlings can also direct streams of faeces at intruders, and will hiss at them in a snake-like fashion.

[citation needed] At the Old Kingdom, the hoopoe was used in the iconography as a symbolic code to indicate the child was the heir and successor of his father.

27:21 I will surely subject him to a severe punishment, or ˹even˺ slaughter him, unless he brings me a compelling excuse.” 27:22 It was not long before the bird came and said, “I have found out something you do not know.

For Satan has made their deeds appealing to them—hindering them from the ˹Right˺ Way and leaving them unguided— The connection of the hoopoe with Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the Qur'anic tradition is mentioned in passing in Rudyard Kipling's Just So story "The Butterfly that Stamped".

As her bird, it could only be hunted with the express permission of the goddess's high priest, and even then only for strictly medicinal purposes.

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 6, King Tereus of Thrace rapes Philomela, his wife Procne's sister, and cuts out her tongue.

When Tereus sees the boy's head, which is served on a platter, he grabs a sword but just as he attempts to kill the sisters, they are turned into birds—Procne into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale.

[40] The bird's crest indicates his royal status, and his long, sharp beak is a symbol of his violent nature.

In Morocco, hoopoes are traded live and as medicinal products in the markets, primarily in herbalist shops.

[42] In Manipur, one of the states comprising Northeast India, the hoopoe is still used by traditional Muslim healers in a variety of preparations believed locally to benefit a number of conditions both medical and spiritual.

[43] Furthermore the authors record the following local Manipuri beliefs concerning specific body parts of the hoopoe: While Ibopishak and Bimola are unable to find any discernible effect of hoopoe tissue alone upon the dissolution of kidney stones, they do note that their experiments reveal that hoopoe tissue potentiates the effects of the Manipuri medicinal plant Cissus javana, when employed to treat such calculi (local healers use bird and plant in just such a combination for this purpose).

[47] A talking hoopoe named Almost Brilliant is a character in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle, first appearing in The Empress of Salt and Fortune.