The minute hermit (''Phaethornis idaliae'') is a tiny

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 ...

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 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 ...

. 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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The minute hermit was for a time considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

with the

little hermit The little hermit (''Phaethornis longuemareus'') is a hummingbird that is a resident breeder in north-eastern Venezuela, northern Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Trinidad. This lowland species occurs in various semi-open wooded habitats, e.g. ...

(''P. longuemareus'') and now is treated with it as a superspecies.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 August 2021. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021 It 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

The minute hermit is one of the world's smallest birds.Gerald Wood, The Guinness Book of Animal Facts and Feats. Sterling Pub Co Inc. (1983), It is long and weighs . The male has dark iridescent green upperparts and a dark brown throat. The female's underparts are reddish orange. Both sexes have a black "mask" and a pale

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

and malar stripe.Hinkelmann, C., G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Minute Hermit (''Phaethornis idaliae''), 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.minher1.01 retrieved November 25, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The minute hermit is found in southeastern Brazil from approximately

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...

south to

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 ...

state. It inhabits the understory of

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...

or lightly disturbed forest including their edges, and also 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. ...

and forested islands. It has been recorded in ''Eucalyptus'' plantations near its preferred habitat. In elevation it ranges from sea level to .

Behavior

Movement

The minute hermit is assumed to be sedentary.

Feeding

The minute hermit is a " trap-line" feeder like other hermit hummingbirds, visiting a circuit of flowering plants for nectar. It also consumes 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 ...

Breeding

The minute hermit's breeding season spans from October to February. Males display to females 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 ...

. Its nest is an open cup suspended from the underside of a drooping leaf. The clutch of two eggs is incubated solely by the female.

Vocalization

The minute hermit's song is "a high-pitched note repeated 3–4 times, followed by an accelerated descending warble" sung from a low perch.

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 minute hermit as being of Least Concern, though its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. It has a very restricted range in the

Atlantic Forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...

, a habitat that has almost entirely been deforested. It does occur in a few protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1270116

minute hermit The minute hermit (''Phaethornis idaliae'') is a tiny species of hummingbird in the family Trochilidae. It is endemic to Brazil. Taxonomy and systematics The minute hermit was for a time considered conspecific with the little hermit (''P. lo ...

Birds of the Atlantic Forest Endemic birds of Brazil

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot