The wedge-tailed sabrewing (''Pampa pampa'') is a

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 "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and possibly

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 ...

.Arizmendi, M. d. C., C. I. Rodríguez-Flores, C. A. Soberanes-González, and T. S. Schulenberg (2021). Wedge-tailed Sabrewing (''Pampa curvipennis''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.wetsab1.01.1 retrieved August 5, 2022

Taxonomy and systematics

The taxonomy of the wedge-tailed sabrewing is unsettled. It was formerly placed in the genus ''

Campylopterus The sabrewings are relatively large Neotropical hummingbirds that form the genus ''Campylopterus''. They are species of the understory and edges of forests, mostly in mountains, and often near streams. The female Sabrewing lays its two white eggs ...

''. A

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study published in 2014 found that the genus ''Campylopterus'' was polyphyletic. In the revised classification to create

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

genera, the wedge-tailed sabrewing was moved to the resurrected genus ''

Pampa The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazil ...

'' by some taxonomic systems. The

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union, formerly known as the International Ornithological Committee, is a group of about 200 international ornithologists, and is responsible for the International Ornithological Congress and other international ...

(IOC) adopted the split of ''C. curvipennis'' into three species of sabrewings, the wedge-tailed (''Pampa pampa''), curve-winged (''P. curvipennis''), and long-tailed (''P. excellens''). It treats each as

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 North American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its m ...

and the

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 2022 ...

adopted long-tailed sabrewing as ''P. excellens''. They adopted the wedge-tailed as ''P. curvipennis'' and assigned IOC's wedge-tailed and curve-winged to it as subspecies.

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...

(HBW) was the most conservative. It retained the binomial ''Campylopterus curvipennis'' for the wedge-tailed sabrewing with the three taxa as subspecies. This article follows the IOC treatment of a monotypic wedge-tailed sabrewing.

Description

The wedge-tailed sabrewing is long. Males weigh an average of about and females . Their bill is straight, longish, and stout. Adult males have a bright violet crown, metallic green to bronze green upperparts, and bluish green uppertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are sm ...

. Their tail feathers are mostly dull metallic bluish green that becomes purplish black at the ends. The outermost pair have dusky to brownish gray outer webs. Much of their face is dull grayish white to gray, with a white spot behind the eye. Their underparts are brownish gray. Adult females are very similar to the male. However, their crown is dull blue rather than bright violet, their underparts have a pale cinnamon wash, and the tips of the outermost tail feathers have a buff wash. Immature birds are similar to the adult female, with a duller crown whose feathers have buff tips.

Distribution and habitat

The wedge-tailed sabrewing is found in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and northeastern

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...

, Belize, and northern

. Most sources also include a disjunct population in Honduras in its range. (Note that the map includes the curve-winged sabrewing's separate and more westerly range and excludes Honduras.) It inhabits the interior and edges of humid evergreen and semi-deciduous forest and rainforest. In elevation it ranges from sea level to .

Behavior

Movement

The wedge-tailed sabrewing is generally a year-round resident but individuals may move to lower elevations after breeding.

Feeding

The wedge-tailed sabrewing's foraging strategy and diet are not known in detail; most of the available information applies to the broader two- or three-subspecies models without separation. It consumes nectar, as do all hummingbirds, and insects like most of them. It forages in the low to middle strata of the forest.

Breeding

As is the case for feeding, most of the wedge-tailed sabrewing's 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 ...

has not been detailed separately from that of the curve-winged and long-tailed. It is believed to nest between March and July. Males display for 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 ...

Vocalization

The available descriptions of the wedge-tailed sabrewing's vocalizations apply to the two- or three-subspecies models. (The

xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and Information repository, repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of Bird vocalization, birdsong and bird calls. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound r ...

recordings are from the monotypic species.) Males sing by themselves or in small groups from bare twigs in the forest understory. The song is "a loud, prolonged, gurgling warble interspersed with squeaky chipping". It is the most complex of any hummingbirds' and is "even comparable with calls of the songbirds." Other vocalizations include "a steady sharp chipping, ''chip chip chip chip-ip' chip'' ...and a nasal ''peek''".

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 ...

follows HBW taxonomy and so does not assess the wedge-tailed sabrewing ''

sensu stricto ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...

'' from the three-subspecies ''Campylopterus curvipennis''.

References

wedge-tailed sabrewing Birds of Mexico Birds of the Yucatán Peninsula Birds of Guatemala Birds of Belize Birds of Honduras Hummingbird species of Central America wedge-tailed sabrewing Taxa named by René Lesson Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN