Zafiro Capirotado

Identificación

The violet-capped hummingbird is 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in) long. Males weigh 4 to 6.1 g (0.14 to 0.22 oz) and females 4 to 5 g (0.14 to 0.18 oz). Both sexes have a medium length straight bill that is blackish and sometimes has a dark brown tip to the mandible. The adult male has a glittering violet-blue forehead and crown, dark golden-green upperparts, and a steel blue forked tail. Its underparts are brilliant green with greenish to bluish undertail coverts. The adult female is entirely green above and dirty white to pale buff below. Its tail is only slightly forked; its inner feathers are metallic green and the outer ones steel blue with white tips. Subadult males have a turquoise-blue forehead and crown, whitish bars on the thoat feathers, and grayish brown areas on its underparts.

Taxonomía

The violet-capped woodnymph was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the other hummingbirds in the genus Trochilus and coined the binomial name Trochilus glaucopis. Gmelin based his description on "L'oiseau-mouche à queue fourchue du Brésil" that had been described and illustrated in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson from a preserved specimen that had been sent to Paris from Brazil. The violet-capped woodnymph is now placed with three other woodnymphs in the genus Thalurania that was introduced in 1848 by the English ornithologist John Gould. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek thalos meaning "child" with ouranos meaning "heaven". The specific epithet glaucopis is from the Ancient Greek glaukos meaning "blue-grey" or "glaucous" with ōps meaning "face". The species is treated as monotypic: no subspecies are recognized.

Nombre científico

Thalurania glaucopis

Autoridad

(Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Orden

Apodiformes

Familia

Trochilidae

Género

Thalurania

Distribución y hábitat

The violet-capped woodnymph is found in eastern and southeastern Brazil from Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul, northeastern Argentina's Misiones Province, eastern Paraguay, and northern Uruguay. It inhabits the interior and edges of primary forest, scrublands, and suburban and urban parks and gardens. In elevation it ranges from sea level to 850 m (2,800 ft).

Migración

Especie residente

Comportamiento

Patrón migratorio: Especie residente.

Conservación

Tendencia poblacional

unknown