The purple-throated sunangel (''Heliangelus viola'') 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 "coquettes", tribe

Lesbiini Lesbiini is one of the two tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae in the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The other tribe is Heliantheini (brilliants). The informal name "coquettes" has been proposed for this group as the largest genus, ''L ...

of subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in

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 ...

and

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

.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 May 27, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

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),

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 ...

's ''

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), and the South 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 ...

(AOS) treat the purple-throated sunangel 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 ...

. However, 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 ...

splits it into three subspecies, ''H. v. viola'', ''H. v. pyropus'' and ''H. v. splendidus''.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, 2021Clements, 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 purple-throated sunangel is long and weighs . It has a short, straight, blackish bill. Both sexes have shining green upperparts and green bellies. Their central tail feathers are shining green and the others blackish. Adult males have a glittering blue-green frontlet just above the bill and a deep violet iridescent

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 ...

with a blue-green pectoral bar below it. Adult females lack the blue-green frontlet and iridescent gorget. Their throat is tawny to off-white with bronzy green speckles. Juveniles are similar to the adult female. The differences among the "Clements" subspecies are treated by the other taxonomic systems as being within the range of variation of the nominate.Heynen, I., P. F. D. Boesman, and A. Bonan (2020). Purple-throated Sunangel (''Heliangelus viola''), 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.putsun1.01 retrieved January 22, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The purple-throated sunangel is found on the west slope of the Andes from north-central Ecuador south into Peru as far as the departments of

Cajamarca Cajamarca (), also known by the Quechua name, ''Kashamarka'', is the capital and largest city of the Cajamarca Region as well as an important cultural and commercial center in the northern Andes. It is located in the northern highlands of Peru ...

and Amazonas. When treated as separate subspecies, ''H. v. viola'' is found east of the Marañón River in northern Peru, ''H. v. pyropus'' in southern Ecuador and northwestern Peru, and ''H. v. splendidus'' in northern Peru west of the Marañón. The species inhabits a variety of landscapes including 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

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. ...

, alder (''Alnus'') woodlands, and shrubby areas. In elevation it ranges between .

Behavior

Movement

The purple-throated sunangel is sedentary.

Feeding

The purple-throated sunangel feeds on nectar and insects. In parts of Ecuador it appears to be dependent on the introduced ''Eucalyptus globulus''; at the least its distribution is correlated with that tree's altitudinal occurrence. It captures insects 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 and by gleaning from vegetation.

Breeding

The purple-throated sunangel's breeding season spans from October to January. The clutch of two white eggs is incubated by the female. Nothing 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

The purple-throated sunangel's calls include "a loose series of short dry trills 'trr..tr..trr....trr..', and a repeated, drawn-out, dry, buzzy 'bzzzrrr'."

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 purple-throated sunangel as being of Least Concern. Though its population size is not known it is believed to be stable. Though it has a relatively restricted range it is locally fairly common. It occurs in several protected areas. File:Purple-throatedSunangel2.jpg, Utuana Reserve - Ecuador File:Purple-throatedSunangel3.jpg, female / Utuana Reserve - Ecuador File:Purple-throatedSunangel4.jpg, Utuana Reserve - Ecuador

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1263683 Heliangelus Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes Birds of the Peruvian Andes purple-throated sunangel Taxonomy articles created by Polbot