Purple-throated Sunbird
Leptocoma sperata
A very small bird of wooded areas from the lowlands to lower elevations in the mountains. Male has dark upperparts with a greenish crown and rump, a deep purple throat and upper chest, and a bright red lower chest and upper belly. In Sulu and west Mindanao birds, the red on the chest is replaced by yellow with an orange wash. Male is distinctive. Female resembles several other drab female sunbirds, but has a yellow brow and chest and a brown wing. Call is a sharp upslurred “tsweep!”
Taxonomy
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the purple-throated sunbird in his Ornithologie based on a specimen collected in the Philippines. He used the French name Le grimpereau pourpré des Philippines and the Latin Certhia Philippensis Purpurea. Although Brisson coined Latin names, these do not conform to the binomial system and are not recognised by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. When in 1766 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition, he added 240 species that had been previously described by Brisson. One of these was the purple-throated sunbird. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Certhia sperata and cited Brisson's work. Linnaeus specified the type location as the Philippines but this was subsequently restricted to Manila. The specific name sperata is Latin for "bride" or "betrothed". The species is now placed in the genus Leptocoma was introduced by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis in 1850.<p>Four subspecies are recognised:
- Scientific name
- Leptocoma sperata
- Authority
- (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Nectariniidae
- Genus
- Leptocoma
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Resident species
Conservation
- Population trend
- stable
Photos
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