Medium-sized, robust, usually gregarious, passerines; many subspecies with iridescent plumage (glittering oily colours are structural, rathern than pigment-based). They are omnivorous, foraging mainly on the ground (where they can hop or run) for a wide variety of fruits, nectar, and also invertebrates that are gleaned from vegetation, caught on the ground or hawked from a perch. Many species will assiciate commensally with mammals to catch the prey they inadvertly disturb while foraging.
They usually roost communally in reedbeds or trees.
Starlings are monogamous, often with protracted pair-bond and territorial. Incubation is usually performed by the female alone.
Several subspecies are parasitised by greater honeyguide and great spotted cuckoo.

Creatophora = flesh bearer, in reference to wattles of the female
Cinnyricinclus = shining thrush
Lamprotornis = shining bird

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