Megalaimidae

Chinese: With the exception of the Great barbet, occurring right across southern China, the barbets are mainly confined to the far south west (especially Yunnan). Megalaima oorti (Muller's or Black-browed barbet) is found in Taiwan and Hainan.

Perhaps because the barbets are unknown in northern China, naturalists have felt free to bestow on them the less-than-inspiring name of 拟啄木鸟 nǐ-zhuómù-niǎo, meaning 'mock woodpecker' or 'pseudo-woodpecker'. Zheng Guangmei's world list of birds uses the similar but considerably more compact 拟䴕 nǐ-liè, 'mock woodpecker', using the word 䴕 liè, an old name for the woodpeckers. (If your browser can't see the character, place your mouse over the top). The Taiwanese name for Megalaima oorti is the more poetic 五色鳥 wǔsè-niǎo 'five-coloured bird', which appears to be from Japanese.

Another name for the barbets is 须䴕 xū-liè or 'bearded woodpecker' as found in the family name Capitonidae (which actually uses an unauthorised simplification of the character 鬚 xū for 'beard', not reproduced here).

Japanese: The Japanese call the barbets ゴシキドリ go-shiki-dori or 'five-coloured bird', written 五色鳥. The barbets are not found in Japan. The 'common barbet' or ゴシキドリ go-shiki-dori itself is the species found in Taiwan.

Vietnamese: Vietnamese has two names for the barbets, Thầy chùa meaning 'bonze, Buddhist priest' and Cu rốc. The second name could be interpreted as 'emaciated pigeon', but this does not seem very plausible. Neither term is found in non-specialist dictionaries with the meaning of 'barbet'.

The distribution of barbets in East Asia can be found at Tzung-Su Ding's Distribution of PICIFORMES in East Asia.

Cheng Tso-hsin and Chinese sources following him assign one species found in Yunnan to M. zeylanica. More recently it has become common to treat it as M. lineata. Whether the species is assigned to M. zeylanica or M. lineata, however, all agree that the species in China should be known as 绿拟啄木鸟 lǜ nǐ-zhuómù-niǎo 'green barbet'.

The situation can be summed up in the following table (green background indicates that the source concerned regards this as the Yunnan species):

The unfortunate victim of this confusion is M. zeylanica. If the name 绿拟啄木鸟 lǜ nǐ-zhuómù-niǎo is assigned to M. lineata, what name should be used for M. zeylanica? The confusion is exacerbated by the sudden flip-flop on the part of Zheng Guangmei in his list of birds of China of 2005, which treats the species in China as M. lineata while using English and Chinese names which theoretically belong to M. zeylanica (Oriental green barbet, 绿拟啄木鸟 lǜ nǐ-zhuómù-niǎo).

A collection of barbet photos can be found here: Yensira Sanctuary (Thailand).