Green-tailed Emerald

Identificazione

The male green-tailed emerald is 7.5 to 8.5 cm (3.0 to 3.3 in) long and females 6.5 to 7.5 cm (2.6 to 3.0 in). The species weighs between 3 and 4 g (0.11 and 0.14 oz). Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. The male's forehead and crown are shining dark green, its upperparts bronzy green, its tail glittering bronze-green, and its underparts grass green. The female's upperparts are like the male's. It has a white line behind the eye. Its underparts are pale grayish and the undertail coverts are dark gray. Its central tail feathers are green and the rest have green bases with black near the end and grayish tips. Immature birds resemble the female with buffy fringes on the feathers of the head.

Tassonomia

The green-tailed emerald was originally described as Trochilus alice and later moved to its present genus Chlorostilbon. The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society, the International Ornithological Committee (IOC), and the Clements taxonomy recognize it as a monotypic species. However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World treats it as a subspecies of the short-tailed emerald, (C. poortmani). At least one author has suggested that it is a subspecies of narrow-tailed emerald (C. stenurus).

Nome scientifico

Chlorostilbon alice

Autorità

(Bourcier & Mulsant, 1848)

Ordine

Apodiformi

Famiglia

Trochilidae

Genere

Chlorostilbon

Areale e habitat

The green-tailed emerald is endemic to northern Venezuela, from Falcón south to Lara and Sucre and east to Monagas. It inhabits the semi-open edges of a variety of forest types including semi-humid rainforest, cloudforest, secondary forest, plantations, and sometimes dry forest. In elevation it ranges between 700 and 1,800 m (2,300 and 5,900 ft).

Migrazione

Specie stanziale

Comportamento

Comportamento migratorio: Specie stanziale.

Conservazione

Tendenza della popolazione: stabile.

Tendenza della popolazione

stabile