The slender sheartail (''Doricha enicura'') 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 tribe

Mellisugini Mellisugini 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 Lampornithini (mountain gems) and Trochilini (emeralds). The informal name "bees" has ...

of 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 ...

, the "bee hummingbirds". 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 ...

, and

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 ...

.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

The slender sheartail shares genus ''Doricha'' with the Mexican sheartail (''D. eliza''). 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 male slender sheartail is long and weighs about . Females are long and weigh about . Both sexes have a long, decurved, black bill and a white spot behind the eye. The male's head, upperparts, and sides of the belly are green. Its

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 ...

is pinkish purple and the chest and center of the belly white. The very long tail is deeply forked. The central pair of feathers are green and the others blackish. The female's upperparts are green and the underparts cinnamon-buff. It has a blackish stripe through the eye. Its tail is much shorter and less forked than the male's; its central pair of feathers are green and the others cinnamon with a wide black band near the tip and white tips.Peterson, A. T. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Slender Sheartail (''Doricha enicura''), 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.sleshe1.01 retrieved July 26, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The slender sheartail is found in mountains and their interior valleys from

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, ...

in southern Mexico through Guatemala and northeastern El Salvador into Honduras. It inhabits semi-open landscapes such as forest openings, woodland,

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 scrublands. In elevation it ranges between .

Behavior

Movement

The slender sheartail is generally sedentary though there are seasonal changes in abundance.

Feeding

The slender sheartail forages for nectar and 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 ...

s from ground level to the middle strata of the vegetation. While feeding on nectar, males hold their tails nearly vertical while females wag and open and close theirs.

Breeding

The slender sheartail has been documented breeding in October in Chiapas, but nothing else is known about its 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 slender sheartail's vocalizations are poorly known and have seldom been recorded. It does make "fairly hard, rapid chips" while perched or feeding.

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 slender sheartail as being of Least Concern. It has a fairly large range and an estimated population of between 20,000 and 50,000 mature individuals. However, the population is believed to be decreasing. It is considered rare to locally common. The main threat to it is clearing of its habitat for agriculture.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q909086

slender sheartail The slender sheartail (''Doricha enicura'') is a species of hummingbird in tribe Mellisugini of subfamily Trochilinae, the "bee hummingbirds". It is found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ...

Birds of Mexico Birds of Guatemala Birds of El Salvador Birds of Honduras

Taxa named by Louis Pierre Vieillot Taxonomy articles created by Polbot