Musophagids often have prominent crests and long tails; the turacos are noted for peculiar and unique pigments giving them their bright green and red feathers.

They have rounded wings and long tails and strong legs, making them poor fliers, but good runners.

[6] Turacos are medium-sized arboreal birds endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, where they live in forests, woodland and savanna.

Many species are noisy, with the go-away-birds being especially noted for their piercing alarm calls, which alert other fauna to the presence of predators; their common name is onomatopoeia of this.

Other "greens" in bird colors result from a yellow pigment such as some carotenoid, combined with the prismatic physical structure of the feather itself which scatters the light in a particular way and giving a blue colour.

[14] While it is not entirely certain that these fossils are indeed of turacos, it nonetheless appears as if the family evolved in the Oligocene of central Europe or perhaps northern Africa, and later on shifted its distribution southwards.

The Early Eocene Promusophaga was initially believed to be the oldest record of the turacos; it was eventually reconsidered a distant relative of the ostrich and is now in the ratite family Lithornithidae.

Filholornis from the Late Eocene or Early Oligocene of France is occasionally considered a musophagid, but its relationships have always been disputed.

It is not often considered a turaco in more recent times and has been synonymised with the presumed gruiform Talantatos, though it is not certain whether this will become widely accepted.

[14] The phylogenetic analysis conducted by Field & Hsiang (2018) indicated that Eocene (Wasatchian) species Foro panarium known from the Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation (Wyoming, United States) was a stem-turaco.