The brown inca (''Coeligena wilsoni'') is a species of

hummingbird 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 aro ...

in the "brilliants", tribe

Heliantheini Heliantheini is one of the two tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae of the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The other tribe in the subfamily is Lesbiini. The informal name "brilliants" has been proposed for this group as it includes the ge ...

in subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The brown inca and most other members of genus ''Coeligena'' were at one time placed in genus ''Helianthea'' but have been in their current placement since the mid-1900s.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 31 January 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved February 1, 2022 The brown inca,

bronzy inca The bronzy inca (''Coeligena coeligena'') is a species of hummingbird in the "brilliants", tribe Heliantheini in subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handboo ...

(''C. coeligena''), and

black inca The black inca (''Coeligena prunellei'') is a species of hummingbird in the "brilliants", tribe Heliantheini in subfamily Lesbiinae. It is endemic to Colombia.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdL ...

(''C. prunellei'') are sister species.Züchner, T. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Brown Inca (''Coeligena wilsoni''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.broinc2.01 retrieved 27 April 2022 The brown inca is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

. The species'

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

commemorates the American naturalist

Thomas Bellerby Wilson Thomas Bellerby Wilson (1807–1865) was an American naturalist. Wilson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and educated first at a Quaker school there, then in Darlington, England, and then at the University of Paris, France and Trinity Coll ...

Description

The brown inca is about long. Males weigh about and females about . Both sexes have a long, straight, black bill and a white spot behind the eye. Adult males' upperparts are reddish bronze with a greenish olive lower back and a bronzy forked tail. Their underparts are mostly dull brown with an amethyst

gorget A gorget , from the French ' meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the thro ...

and a white patch on each side of the breast. Adult females are essentially the same as males but for a longer bill, a smaller gorget, and a less forked tail. Immatures resemble the adult female.

Distribution and habitat

The brown inca is found on the

Pacific slope The Pacific Slope describes geographic regions in North American, Central American, and South American countries that are west of the continental divide and slope down to the Pacific Ocean. In North America, the Rocky Mountains mark the eastern bo ...

of the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

from Colombia's Chocó Department south through Ecuador all the way to

Loja Province Loja Province () is one of 24 provinces in Ecuador and shares its southern border on the west with El Oro Province, on the north with El Azuay, and on the east with Zamora-Chinchipe. Founded on its present site in 1548 by Captain Alonso de Mer ...

. It most commonly inhabits the edges of

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

and is also found in the forest interior. In elevation it generally ranges from . However, it is most common below and has been recorded as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The brown inca probably makes some seasonal movements but little data are available.

Feeding

The brown inca forages for

nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists ...

trap-lining In ethology and behavioral ecology, trap-lining or traplining is a feeding strategy in which an individual visits food sources on a regular, repeatable sequence, much as trappers check their lines of traps. Traplining is usually seen in species ...

, visiting a circuit of a wide variety of flowering plants low in the forest understory. Examples include genera ''

Psammisia ''Psammisia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. It contains the fruiting bushes commonly called ''joyapas'' and is distributed throughout the Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms co ...

'', ''

Macleania ''Macleania'' is a genus of plants in the family Ericaceae. Description They are epiphytic or terrestrial shrubs. Alternate leaves, petiolate, coriaceous, pinnatinervias or plinervias. Subfasciculate or racemose inflorescences, axillary or termin ...

'', ''

Cavendishia ''Cavendishia'' is a genus of about 100 species of woody perennial plants, many of which are epiphytic. The genus is native to tropical South America and Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the ...

'', and ''

Fuchsia ''Fuchsia'' () is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first to be scientifically described, '' Fuchsia triphylla'', was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republi ...

''. In addition to feeding on nectar it gleans small

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a Segmentation (biology), segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and Arth ...

s from vegetation and sometimes captures them by

hawking Hawking may refer to: People * Stephen Hawking (1942–2018), English theoretical physicist and cosmologist *Hawking (surname), a family name (including a list of other persons with the name) Film * ''Hawking'' (2004 film), about Stephen Haw ...

Breeding

The brown inca's breeding season spans from January to June. It builds a cup nest of moss and plant fibers, typically above ground in a fork of a small tree. The female alone incubates the clutch of two eggs for 15 to 16 days; fledging occurs 22 to 26 days after hatch.

Vocalization

What is thought to be the brown inca's song is "a repeated phrase comprising three notes, 'tsip-tzreeew-tzrew'". It has a variety of calls such as "tsit" and "tsi-tsit" notes and a "tsitsitsitsitsit…tsitsitsi...tsitsitsit..." series. In flight it utters "a short rattle 'trrr', short twitters... nda high-pitched 'tzree...tzee...tzee...tzee'."

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has assessed the brown inca as being of

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

, though its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. It is regarded as uncommon to locally common. Its habitat is under threat by deforestation and it is not known if the species accepts human-altered landscapes. It does occur in several protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q510226 brown inca Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes brown inca brown inca