The green-crowned plovercrest, also black-breasted plovercrest or simply plovercrest, (''Stephanoxis lalandi'') 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 "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

.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 green-crowned plovercrest and

purple-crowned plovercrest The purple-crowned plovercrest, or violet-crowned plovercrest, (''Stephanoxis loddigesii'') is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.HBW and BirdLif ...

(''Stephanoxis loddigesii'') were originally treated as separate species but in the mid-1900s were combined under the name "plovercrest" with the

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms * Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials *Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition ...

''S. lalandi''. A study published in 2014 provided evidence that the original two-species treatment was correct. Taxonomists worldwide agreed and the two taxa were restored to species status. They are the only members of the genus and are

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 ...

.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 24 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021

Description

The green-crowned plovercrest is long. Males weigh and females about . Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. Adult males have a shaggy, mostly iridescent green, crest whose longest feather is purplish black. Their face is gray with a white spot behind the eye. Their upperparts are shining bronze-green. Their chin to upper belly is violet-blue and the rest of the underparts are gray. Their central tail feathers are green and the rest green with a blackish band near the end and grayish white tips. Adult females and juveniles have a smaller crest. Their upperparts are shining green and their underparts gray.Schuchmann, K.L., G. M. Kirwan, and C. J. Sharpe (2020). Green-crowned Plovercrest (''Stephanoxis lalandi''), 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.plover3.01 retrieved August 6, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The green-crowned plovercrest is found in the eastern Brazilian states of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

Espírito Santo Espírito Santo (, , ; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attra ...

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

, and

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. It inhabits the understory of forest, scrublands, and vegetation along watercourses. In elevation it mostly ranges between sea level and about but has been found as high as .

Behavior

Movement

The green-crowned plovercrest is mostly sedentary, though it might make some seasonal movements.

Feeding

The green-crowned plovercrest forages for nectar from near the ground to the canopy, utilizing both native and introduced flowering species. Males defend feeding territories duing the breeding season. In addition to nectar, the species feeds on insects caught in flight or gleaned from leaves.

Breeding

The green-crowned plovercrest's breeding season spans from October to March. Males usually gather at

leks A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. A lek can also indicate an avail ...

to court females, but single birds also display. Females make a cup nest of soft plant and seed fibers bound with spiderweb. It is typically placed on a forked branch in vegetation at about above the ground. Females incubate the clutch of two eggs for 14 to 16 days and fledging occurs 24 to 28 days after hatch.

Vocalization

The male green-crowned plovercrest's song is "a long series of a repeated modulated note, 'tsi-ling...tsi-ling...tsi-ling...'", which typically starts with "a high-pitched 'tsee'."

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 green-crowned plovercrest as being of Least Concern, though its population size and trend are unknown. No immediate threats have been identified. It is considered patchily distributed and locally common. It occurs in three national parks and " adily takes to man-made habitats such as farmland" as long as patches of scrub or forest remain.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q268028

green-crowned plovercrest The green-crowned plovercrest, also black-breasted plovercrest or simply plovercrest, (''Stephanoxis lalandi'') is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is endemic to Brazil.HBW and BirdLife ...

Birds of Brazil Birds of the Atlantic Forest Endemic birds of Brazil

Taxa named by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot Taxonomy articles created by Polbot