The empress brilliant (''Heliodoxa imperatrix'') 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 Lesbiinae is one of the six subfamily, subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into two Tribe (biology), tribes: Heliantheini ("brilliants") containing 14 genera and Lesbiini ("coqu ...

. 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

In the early part of the 20th century the empress brilliant was treated as the only member of genus ''Eugenia'', which was later merged into the present ''Heliodoxa''.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 species 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 ...

Description

Male empress brilliants are long and weigh about . Females are long and weigh about . The adult male's forehead, face, and breast are mostly glittering dark green, with a square glittering pale violet patch in the center of the throat. Its crown and nape are dark green and the rest of the upperparts dark bronzy green. Its belly is glittering golden green. The central tail feathers are dark bronze and the rest longer and black with a bronze gloss. The adult female's upperparts are bronzy green. The center of its throat and breast are grayish with much bronzy green flecking, the flanks solid bronzy green, and the belly golden green. The central tail feathers are bronzy green and the others dull black with a bronze gloss.Stiles, F.G. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Empress Brilliant (''Heliodoxa imperatrix''), 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.empbri1.01 retrieved 7 May 2022 Immature males have a dull dark bronzy green head, throat, and breast; bright buff chin and sides of the throat; and a duller and bronzier green belly than the adult. Immature females also have a buffy chin, and the green feathers of the breast are duller than the adult's and have buffy fringes.

Distribution and habitat

The empress brilliant is found on the Pacific slope of the Andes from Colombia's

Chocó Department Choco Department is a department of Western Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It ...

south into Ecuador as far as

Pichincha Province Pichincha () is a province of Ecuador located in the northern Sierra region; its capital and largest city is Quito. It is bordered by Imbabura and Esmeraldas to the north, Cotopaxi and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas to the south, Napo and ...

. It inhabits a variety of very wet landscapes including foothill forest, the interior and 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 mature

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

. In elevation it ranges from .

Behavior

Movement

The movements of the empress brilliant, if any, have not been described.

Feeding

Both sexes of empress brilliant forage from the mid-level to the forest canopy, and females also forage in the understorey. A primary source of nectar are the flowers of ''Marcgravia'' and ''Marcgraviastrum'' vines, where it perches to feed. It also feeds by hovering under drooping flowers of

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

. In addition to feeding on nectar, it also captures small insects by gleaning from foliage and

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 ...

from a perch.

Breeding

The empress brilliant's breeding season spans from January to April. The few known nests were cups of

tree fern The tree ferns are arborescent (tree-like) ferns that grow with a trunk elevating the fronds above ground level, making them trees. Many extant tree ferns are members of the order Cyatheales, to which belong the families Cyatheaceae (scaly tree ...

scales and other plant material held together with spider silk and lined with soft seed fluff. Very little else is known about the species' breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonality, seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as environmental factor, habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples includ ...

Vocalization

One empress brilliant vocalization is a "repeated single 'tsit' note". It is also given singly while hovering and feeding.

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 empress brilliant as being of Least Concern. However, it has a restricted range and its population size and trend are unknown. No immediate threats have been identified. It appears to be reasonably common and occurs in some protected areas. " tsvery wet forest habitat still mostly intact".

References

External links

Photo-High Res
chandra.as.utexas.edu–"Birds of Ecuador"
Photo
mindobirds {{Taxonbar, from=Q513226 empress brilliant Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes empress brilliant Taxonomy articles created by Polbot