Woodnymphs are

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 ...

s in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Thalurania''. Males are green and violet-blue, while females are green with white-tipped tails and at least partially whitish underparts. Both sexes have an almost straight, entirely black bill and little or no white post-ocular spot. They are found in forest (primarily humid) and tall second growth. The species in this genus are almost entirely allo- or

parapatric In parapatric speciation, two subpopulations of a species evolve reproductive isolation from one another while continuing to exchange genes. This mode of speciation has three distinguishing characteristics: 1) mating occurs non-randomly, 2) gene ...

, and a species is present virtually everywhere in the tropical humid

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...

Taxonomy

The genus ''Thalurania'' was introduced in 1848 by the English ornithologist

John Gould John Gould (; 14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. He published a number of monographs on birds, illustrated by plates produced by his wife, Elizabeth Gould, and several other artists, including Edward Lear, ...

. Gould did not specify a

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

but this was designated as the fork-tailed woodnymph by

George Robert Gray George Robert Gray FRS (8 July 1808 – 6 May 1872) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. He was the younger brother o ...

in 1855. The genus name combines the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''thalos'' meaning "child" with ''ouranos'' meaning "heaven". The genus contains four species: *

Crowned woodnymph The crowned woodnymph or violet-crowned woodnymph (''Thalurania colombica'') is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found from Belize and Guatemala to northern Peru.HBW and BirdLife Int ...

(''Thalurania colombica'') *

Fork-tailed woodnymph The fork-tailed woodnymph (''Thalurania furcata'') is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in every mainland South American country except Chile and Uruguay.HBW and BirdLife Interna ...

(''Thalurania furcata'') * Violet-capped woodnymph (''Thalurania glaucopis'') * Long-tailed woodnymph (''Thalurania watertonii'') In 2009 an additional species was described as the black-capped woodnymph (''T. nigricapilla''). It is reportedly restricted to Valle del Cauca in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and lacks iridescence to its crown, but at present no official authority (beyond the describers themselves) recognize it as valid. This genus formerly included the

Mexican woodnymph The Mexican woodnymph (''Eupherusa ridgwayi'') is a species of hummingbird in the family Trochilidae endemic to western Mexico. It lives in subtropical or tropical moist lowland/foothill forest and plantations, feeding on flower nectar and inse ...

. 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 ''Thalurania'' was non-monophyletic and that the Mexican woodnymph is closely related to species in the genus '' Eupherusa''. Based on this result the Mexican woodnymph is now placed in ''Eupherusa''.

References

* Peterson, A. T., Stiles, F. G., and Schuchmann, K. L. 1999. Woodnymphs (Thalurania). pp. 585–586 in: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., and Sargatal, J. eds. 1999. ''Handbook of the Birds of the World.'' Vol. 5. Barn-owls to Hummingbirds. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Hummingbirds Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Apodiformes-stub