The barbthroats are a genus ''Threnetes'' of South American hummingbirds in the family

Trochilidae Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics arou ...

Taxonomy

The

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Threnetes'' was introduced in 1852 by the English ornithologist

John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, ...

. The name is from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''thrēnētēs'' meaning "mourner". The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is the pale-tailed barbthroat. The genus contains three

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. The supposed "black barbthroats", described as ''T. grzimeki'', are actually juvenile males of the

rufous-breasted hermit The rufous-breasted hermit or hairy hermit (''Glaucis hirsutus'') is a hummingbird that breeds from Panama south to Bolivia, and on Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada. It is a widespread and generally common species, though local populations may cha ...

(''Glaucis hirsuta'').

References

Bird genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{hummingbird-stub