The garnet-throated hummingbird (''Lamprolaima rhami'') 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 tribe

Lampornithini Lampornithini is one of the three tribes that make up the subfamily Trochilinae in the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The other two tribes in the subfamily are Mellisugini (bees) and Trochilini (emeralds). The informal name "mountain gems" has ...

of subfamily

Trochilinae Trochilinae is one of the six subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into three tribes: Lampornithini (mountain gems) containing 18 species, Mellisugini (bees) containing 37 species and Trochilini (e ...

. It is found in

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

, and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

.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 garnet-throated hummingbird is the only member of

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 ...

''Lamprolaima'', a name which is a combination of two Greek words: ', meaning brilliant or radiant and ', meaning throat. The

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 Henri-Casimir de Rham, a Swiss diplomat to the United States who was founder of the Swiss Benevolent Society in New York, a businessman, naturalist, and collector.

Description

The garnet-throated hummingbird is long and weighs . Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. The adult male's upperparts are iridescent green. Much of the face is black, with a small white spot behind the eye. The

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 ...

is shining rosy pink and the breast iridescent violet-blue. The rest of the underparts are blackish with mottled green flanks. The wings are rufous with dark brown tips to the feathers. The tail is dark purple with gray tips on the outer feathers. The adult female also has iridescent green upperparts. The underparts are dusky gray, usually with small pinkish dots on the throat. The wings and tail are similar to the male's but the outer tail feathers have white tips. Juvenile males are similar to the adult female but with darker underparts and buff fringes on the chest feathers. Juvenile females are similar to the adult but with buff fringes on the head feathers.Schuchmann, K.L. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Garnet-throated Hummingbird (''Lamprolaima rhami''), 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.gathum1.01 retrieved 22 July 2022

Distribution and habitat

The garnet-throated hummingbird is found discontinuously from Mexico's

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...

Puebla Puebla ( en, colony, settlement), officially Free and Sovereign State of Puebla ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 217 municipalities and its cap ...

, and

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

states south through Guatemala into El Salvador and Honduras. It inhabits the interior and edges of tropical forest,

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 pine-oak forest and also scrublands. In elevation it ranges between but is most numerous between ; in Honduras it occurs only above .

Behavior

Movement

The garnet-throated hummingbird moves between higher elevation during the breeding season to lower elevation outside it.

Feeding

The garnet-throated hummingbird feeds on nectar from flowering shrubs and trees, especially those of genera ''

Inga ''Inga'' is a genus of small tropical, tough-leaved, nitrogen-fixing treesElkan, Daniel. "Slash-and-burn farming has become a major threat to the world's rainforest" ''The Guardian'' 21 April 2004 and shrubs, subfamily Mimosoideae. ''Inga''s l ...

'' and ''

Erythrina ''Erythrina'' is a genus of plants in the pea family, Fabaceae. It contains about 130 species, which are distributed in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. They are trees, with the larger species growing up to in height. The generic na ...

''. It tends to forage below of the ground. Males defend feeding territories. In addition to nectar, the species feeds on small insects captured 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 ...

from a perch.

Breeding

The garnet-throated hummingbird breeds in April and May on the Atlantic slope and between December and March on the Pacific slope. The female builds a bulky cup nest of moss, leaf parts, and pine needles lined with softer plant fibers. It often attaches the nest to exposed roots on earth banks such as those of streams. The incubation length and time to fledging are not known.

Vocalization

The garnet-throated hummingbird's song is "a soft, gruff, dry, crackling warble intermixed by nasal, gurgling notes." Its calls include "a nasal 'nyik' and 'choiw', high-pitched chips and a sharp, slightly buzzy 'tis-i-tyu-tyu'."

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 garnet-throated hummingbird as being of least concern, though its population size and trend are not known. It is locally common, even in human-modified environments as long as some forest remains. However, the Mexican government at one time considered it

Threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensat ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q249947 garnet-throated hummingbird Hummingbird species of Central America Birds of Mexico Birds of the Sierra Madre del Sur Birds of Guatemala Birds of Honduras garnet-throated hummingbird Taxa named by René Lesson Taxonomy articles created by Polbot