Colibrí Lucero

Identificación

The flame-throated sunangel is 10 to 11 cm (3.9 to 4.3 in) long and weighs 3.6 to 4.1 g (0.13 to 0.14 oz). Its straight bill is blackish. Both sexes have dark metallic green upperparts. Their lower breasts are dark metallic green, their bellies grayish, and their vent areas almost white. Their tails are dark steel blue. Adult males of the nominate subspecies have a glittering blue-green frontlet just above the bill, a dark purplish blue chin, and an iridescent yellow-orange gorget with a glittering emerald green border. Adult females lack the blue-green frontlet, their chin is blackish, and their throat is white with green to dusky gray speckles and sometimes a few iridescent reddish orange discs. Juveniles are like the adult female but the male does not have the blackish chin. Males of subspecies H. m. cutervensis have a reddish orange gorget.

Taxonomía

The flame-throated sunangel has been considered conspecific with the gorgeted sunangel (H. exortis). It has two subspecies, the nominate H. m. micraster and H. m. cutervensis.

Nombre científico

Heliangelus micraster

Autoridad

Gould, 1872

Orden

Apodiformes

Familia

Trochilidae

Género

Heliangelus

Distribución y hábitat

The nominate subspecies of flame-throated sunangel is found on the eastern slope of the Andes from Ecuador's Morona-Santiago Province into northern Peru. H. m. cutervensis is found in Peru's Department of Cajamarca. The species inhabits the interior and borders of dense mossy forest. In elevation it mostly ranges between 2,300 and 3,400 m (7,500 and 11,200 ft) but has been recorded as low as 1,500 m (4,900 ft).

Migración

Especie residente

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Especie residente.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional

unknown