Glittering-throated Emerald

Identificazione

The glittering-throated emerald is 8 to 12 cm (3.1 to 4.7 in) long and weighs 3.5 to 6.2 g (0.12 to 0.22 oz). Both sexes have a straight bill with a blackish maxilla and a pinkish mandible with a dark tip; its length varies among the subspecies. Adult males of the nominate subspecies C. f. fimbriata have golden- to bronze-green upperparts and a dark bronze-green to blackish bronze tail. Their throat and most of their breast are glittering golden-green. The center of their lower breast and their belly are white and their undertail coverts white with brownish centers. Adult females are similar to the male with the addition of white bars near the end of their throat feathers and greenish-gray tips on their outermost tail feathers. Juveniles resemble the adult female but with a more grayish-brown breast.<p>Subspecies C. f. elegantissima has coppery to purplish uppertail coverts. C. f. apicalis and C. f. fluviatilis have significantly longer bills than the nominate. C. f. fluviatilis also has a turquoise to bluish sheen on its throat, a characteristic shared with C. f. laeta. Subspecies C. f. nigricauda and C. f. tephrocephala have completely white undertail coverts and greenish-black to bluish black tails. C. f. tephrocephala is slightly heavier than the nominate and also significantly larger in all dimensions.

Tassonomia

The glittering-throated emerald 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 fimbriatus. Gmelin based his description on "L'Oiseau-mouche à gorge tachetée de Cayenne" that had been described and illustrated by the French ornithologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760, and by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1779.<p>This species was formerly placed in the genus Amazilia. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that Amazilia was polyphyletic. In the revised classification to create monophyletic genera, the glittering-throated emerald and the sapphire-spangled emerald (Chionomesa lactea) were moved by most taxonomic systems to the resurrected genus Chionomesa that had been introduced in 1921 by the French naturalist Eugène Simon. However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World retains it in Amazilia.<p>The genus name Chionomesa combines the Ancient Greek khiōn meaning "snow" with mesos meaning "middle". The specific epithet fimbriata is from the Latin fimbriatus meaning "fringed".<p>Seven subspecies of glittering-throated emerald are recognized:<p>Subspecies C. f. apicalis, C. f. fluviatilis, C. f. nigricauda, and C. f. tephrocephala have at times been treated as individual species.

Nome scientifico

Chionomesa fimbriata

Autorità

(Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Ordine

Apodiformi

Famiglia

Trochilidae

Genere

Chionomesa

Areale e habitat

The subspecies of glittering-throated emerald are found thus:<p>The glittering-throated emerald inhabits a wide variety of semi-open to open landscapes, shunning the interior of dense forest. It is found in less dense dry and humid forest, gallery forest, secondary forest, open woodland, savanna, scrublands, caatinga, plantations, and gardens. C. f. tephrocephala is also found in mangroves.

Migrazione

Specie stanziale

Comportamento

Comportamento migratorio: Specie stanziale.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione

unknown