Contact zone between European ‎Roller (Coracias garrulus) and ‎Indian Roller (Coracias ‎benghalensis) (Coraciiformes: ‎Coraciidae) in Fras province, ‎southwestern Iran

The Rollers or Coraciidae (Passeriformes) are distributed in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. The family has two genera including Coracias with nine species and Eurystomus with four species. Of this species diversity, only European Roller (Coracias garrulus) and Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis) are found in Iran. Evolutionary biologists have always emphasized the importance of recording contact zones for sister species and relatives. The occurrence of hybridization in Coraciiformes was reported at about 14%. The reproductive range of European and Indian roller is broadly geographically separated, however their geographic distributions are in contact in eastern Iraq, western and southern Iran, and Pakistan. There is no information on the contact zone and hybridization between the two species. Therefore, in this study the distribution of these two rollers in the Fars province (southwestern Iran), contact zone and hybridization were investigated in fieldworks conducted during spring and summer in 2017 and 2018 years. The results showed that the European Roller was distributed throughout all of Fars province except narrow range in the south of the province but the distribution of Indian Roller is more restricted to the southern and western half of the province, so the two species has overlapping zones in the southern half and western parts of the province. In the present study, no hybrid specimens were observed in terms of plumage colors.