Antillean Crested Hummingbird

Identificazione

As the name implies, Antillean crested hummingbird is one of the few hummingbirds with a crest. It demonstrates the general sexual dimorphism for hummingbirds where the male is bright and colorful whilst the female is more tannish and dull. Males have a short straight black bill; head with green crest, tipped metallic green to bright blue-green, upperparts dull metallic bronze-green; underparts sooty black; tail black, rounded. The female bill is similar to male’s but its head is without a crest; the forehead, crown and upperparts are metallic bronzy-green; underparts light grey; tail blackish, rounded, four outer rectrices broadly tipped whitish grey.<p>The subspecies can be distinguished by the colour of their crests: exilis is wholly green or slightly tinged blue on tip; ornatus has the terminal portion abruptly blue; cristatus is golden to emerald, violet terminally; emigrans is similar to the nominate but more bluish violet, throat paler grey; the degree of paleness in underparts of female varies with race.<p>Calls include short "tsip" or "tzip" notes and a longer series of “tslee-tslee-tslee-tslee”.

Tassonomia

In 1743 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the Antillean crested hummingbird in his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds. He used the English name "The crested humming bird". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen collected in the West Indies. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the Antillean crested hummingbird with the other hummingbirds in the genus Trochilus. Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Trochilus cristatus and cited Edwards' work. The Antillean crested hummingbird is now the only species placed in the genus Orthorhyncus that was introduced in 1799 by Bernard Germain de Lacépède. The type locality is restricted to the island of Barbados. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek orthos meaning "straight" and "rhunkhos" meaning "bill". The specific epithet cristatus is Latin meaning "crested" or "plumed".<p>Four subspecies are recognised:

Nome scientifico

Orthorhyncus cristatus

Autorità

(Linnaeus, 1758)

Ordine

Apodiformi

Famiglia

Trochilidae

Genere

Orthorhyncus

Areale e habitat

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, semiarid forest and heavily degraded former forest such as open vegetation, parks, plantations, forest borders from sea-level to high mountains. Commonest below 500 m. It lives a sedentary lifestyle, with possible dispersal to higher altitudes in Jul/Aug. Subspecies exilis is rare straggler to the United States.

Migrazione

Specie stanziale

Comportamento

Comportamento migratorio: Specie stanziale.

Conservazione

Non è minacciata a livello globale ed è classificata a rischio minimo. È inclusa nell'Appendice II della CITES. È una specie ad areale ristretto, presente nelle aree di endemismo ornitologico (EBA) di Porto Rico e delle Isole Vergini e delle Piccole Antille. È stanziale e comune, in particolare al livello del mare, con densità di almeno 6–10 coppie per km² a Saint Lucia, 4–8 a Guadalupa e 3–5 a Dominica. È diffusa in tutte le Piccole Antille, a ogni altitudine e in ogni tipo di habitat; la facilità con cui occupa ambienti creati dall'uomo suggerisce che la perdita dell'habitat difficilmente rappresenti un problema.

Tendenza della popolazione

unknown