Rivoli's hummingbird (''Eugenes fulgens''), also known as the magnificent hummingbird, 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 "mountain gems", 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 ...

in 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 Trochili ...

. 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 ...

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 ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

.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

''Eugenes fulgens'' was originally described as the magnificent hummingbird, and by the late 1800s was treated as having two subspecies. Beginning in 2017 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 ...

(NACC), 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), 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 ...

split them into the current Rivoli's hummingbird and the

Talamanca hummingbird The Talamanca hummingbird or admirable hummingbird (''Eugenes spectabilis'') is a species of hummingbird in the "mountain gems", tribe Lampornithini in subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in Costa Rica and Panama.HBW and BirdLife International (2 ...

(''E. spectabilis''). However, as of 2020,

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) retains the single species "magnificent" hummingbird treatment. Rivoli's hummingbird 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

Rivoli's hummingbird is about long and weighs about , with males typically a little larger than females. It has a wingspan of . Of the hummingbirds found in the United States, Rivoli's hummingbird is one of the two largest species, rivaled in size only by the

blue-throated hummingbird The blue-throated mountaingem, also known as the blue-throated mountain-gem or blue-throated hummingbird (''Lampornis clemenciae'') is a species of hummingbird in tribe Lampornithini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in the United States and ...

. The black bill is long and straight to slightly decurved. Both sexes look very dark unless the sun catches the

iridescence Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include soap bubbles, feathers, butterfl ...

of the

plumage Plumage ( "feather") is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, ...

and the brilliant colors flash in the sunlight. During much of the year the species is in the "definitive basic" breeding plumage described below. It has a protracted

molt In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...

between that plumage and the duller non-breeding appearance. There are some minor clinal variations in bill length and the color of the vent area.Powers, D. R., R. Partida-Lara, and P. L. Enríquez (2020). Rivoli's Hummingbird (''Eugenes fulgens''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.maghum1.01 retrieved 11 May 2022 The adult male is green-bronze dorsally, becoming more bronzed on the black-tipped tail. The crown is violet, the throat

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 th ...

bright blue-green, and the rest of the head black apart from a white spot behind the eye. The chest is green-bronze and the belly grayish. The female is bronze-green dorsally and has a dull gray ventral coloring. There is a white stripe behind her eye. Immature birds are like the female, but darker and browner.

Distribution and habitat

Rivoli's hummingbird breeds in mountains from the

southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

and

. It inhabits the interior, edges, and clearings of pine-oak forest and

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 ...

from about up to the timberline as well as more open

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 some grasslands. It regularly comes to bird feeders.

Behavior

Movement

Rivoli's hummingbird is migratory in part of its range. It is a year-round resident from north-central Mexico south to northern Nicaragua. It nests but does not overwinter in southeastern Arizona, possibly in southwestern New Mexico, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua,

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

, and possibly others. There are summer records in the

Chisos Mountains The Chisos Mountains, also known as the Chisos, are a mountain range located in the Big Bend area of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, United States. The mountain system covers 40 square miles (104 square km) and is contained entirely within the ...

of Texas but breeding has not been confirmed there.

Interspecific interaction

Throughout its range Rivoli's hummingbird is subordinate to the larger blue-throated hummingbird. Rivoli's coexists with many other hummingbird species including black-chinned (''Archilocus alexandri'') and broad-tailed (''Selasphorus platycercus''). In Mexico they tend to dominate smaller hummingbirds such as amethyst-throated (''Lampornis amethystinus''), berylline (''Saucerottia beryllina''), and

bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gener ...

(''Atthis heloisa'').

Feeding

Rivoli's hummingbird feeds on nectar from a wide variety of flowering plants whose composition varies by season, elevation, and latitude. In parts of Mexico at least, males defend feeding territories. It also feeds on small insects, which apparently make a larger part of its diet than the diets of other North American hummingbirds. It captures them in mid-air or by gleaning from vegetation while hovering.

Breeding

The Rivoli's hummingbird breeding season spans from May to July in the U.S and is possibly year-round in El Salvador. It has not been defined elsewhere. It builds an open cup nest of soft feathers and moss bound with spider silk and covered with

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.

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 treats Rivoli's and Talamanca hummingbirds as a single species assessed as being of Least Concern. As a whole it has a large range and an apparently stable population, though the population size is not known. Forest fires are a potential threat in the U.S. because Rivoli's is found only in higher isolated mountain ranges. "Habitat destruction in southern Mexico and Central America may have a longer-lasting impact on populations".

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1189991 Eugenes Birds of Mexico Birds of the United States Native birds of the Southwestern United States Birds of Guatemala Birds of Honduras Hummingbird species of Central America Birds described in 1827 Birds of the Sierra Madre Occidental Taxa named by William John Swainson