The scintillant hummingbird (''Selasphorus scintilla'') is a

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 ...

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 ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

. This species is replaced at higher elevations by its relative, the

volcano hummingbird The volcano hummingbird (''Selasphorus flammula'') is a species of hummingbird in tribe Mellisugini of subfamily Trochilinae, the "bee hummingbirds". It is found in Costa Rica and Panama.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the ...

, ''S. flammula''.

Habitat

It inhabits brushy forest edges, coffee plantations and sometimes gardens at altitudes from , and up to when not breeding.

Description

It is only long, including the bill. The male weighs and the female . This is one of the smallest birds in existence, marginally larger than the

bee hummingbird The bee hummingbird, zunzuncito or Helena hummingbird (''Mellisuga helenae'') is a species of hummingbird, native to the island of Cuba in the Caribbean. It is the world's smallest bird. Description The bee hummingbird is the smallest living ...

. The black bill is short and straight. The adult male scintillant hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and a rufous and black-striped tail. The throat is brilliant red, separated from the cinnamon underparts by a white neck band. The female is similar, but her throat is buff with small green spots and the flanks are richer rufous. Young birds resemble the female but have rufous fringes to the upperpart plumage.

Breeding

The female scintillant hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-floss cup nest high in a scrub. Incubation takes 15–19 days, and fledging another 20–26.

Diet

The food of ''S. scintilla'' is

nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists ...

, taken from a variety of small flowers, including ''

Salvia ''Salvia'' () is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with nearly 1000 species of shrubs, herbaceous plant, herbaceous perennial plant, perennials, and annual plant, annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, ''Salvia'' is part of the ...

'' and species normally pollinated by

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s. Like other hummingbirds it also takes some small insects as an essential source of protein. In the breeding season, scintillant hummingbird males perch conspicuously in open areas with ''Salvia'' and defend their feeding territories aggressively with diving displays. The call is a liquid ''tsip''. Scintillant hummingbird (Selasphorus scintilla) female in flight 1.jpg, Female in

Scintillant hummingbird (Selasphorus scintilla) female in flight 2.jpg, Feeding on ''

Abutilon ''Abutilon'' is a large genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics nectar robbing Nectar robbing is a foraging behavior utilized by some organisms that feed on floral nectar, carried out by feeding from holes bitten in flowers, rather than by entering through the flowers' natural openings. "Nectar robbers" usually feed in this ...

)

References

Works cited

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1269631

scintillant hummingbird The scintillant hummingbird (''Selasphorus scintilla'') is a hummingbird endemic to Costa Rica and Panama. This species is replaced at higher elevations by its relative, the volcano hummingbird, ''S. flammula''. Habitat It inhabits brushy fo ...

Birds of the Talamancan montane forests Hummingbird species of Central America

Taxa named by John Gould