The white-bearded hermit (''Phaethornis hispidus'') 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 family Trochilidae. It is found in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

.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. Species Lists of Birds for South American Countries and Territories. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCCountryLists.htm retrieved August 24, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The white-bearded hermit 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 white-bearded hermit is about long and weighs . This medium-sized hermit has bronzy green upperparts with gray margins on the uppertail

coverts A covert feather or tectrix on a bird is one of a set of feathers, called coverts (or ''tectrices''), which, as the name implies, cover other feathers. The coverts help to smooth airflow over the wings and tail. Ear coverts The ear coverts are sm ...

. The underparts are gray. The face has a black "mask" with a white

supercilium The supercilium is a plumage feature found on the heads of some bird species. It is a stripe which runs from the base of the bird's beak above its eye, finishing somewhere towards the rear of the bird's head.Dunn and Alderfer (2006), p. 10 Also ...

and malar stripe; the center of the throat has a white stripe. The female has identical plumage but shorter wings and a shorter and more decurved bill than the male.Hinkelmann, C., G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). White-bearded Hermit (''Phaethornis hispidus''), 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.whbher1.01 retrieved December 1, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The white-bearded hermit is found in

Amazonia The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...

, from the Andean foothills of western and southern Venezuela south through eastern Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru to northeastern Bolivia, and east throughout western Amazonian Brazil. In elevation it usually ranges as high as but has been recorded up to in Peru. It is a bird of humid landscapes. In the lowlands it mostly inhabits regularly inundated areas, such as along rivers and in '' várzea'' forest. At higher elevations if favors gallery forest in the cerrado and

llanos The Llanos (Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, sav ...

Behavior

Movement

No information about the white-bearded hermit's movements has been published.

Feeding

The white-bearded hermit is a " trap-line" feeder like other hermit hummingbirds, visiting a circuit of a wide variety of flowering plants for nectar. It also consumes 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 ...

Breeding

The breeding seasons of the white-bearded hermit vary throughout its large range but have not been defined in detail. Like many hermits, it builds a cone-shaped nest suspended from the underside of drooping leaf. The clutch size is two eggs.

Vocalization

The white-bearded hermit's song is "a continuous series of high-pitched single notes 'seep'. It is typically sung from a low perch while gathered at a

lek Lek or LEK may refer to: * Lek mating, mating in a lek, a type of animal territory in which males of a species gather * Albanian lek, the currency of Albania * Lek (magazine), a Norwegian softcore pornographic magazine * Lek (pharmaceutical comp ...

with other males. Its call is "a short explosive 'pip!'."

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 white-bearded hermit as being of Least Concern though its population size is unknown and believed to be decreasing. It occurs in several protected areas and its " de distribution and adaptability probably mean that species is not threatened."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1263294 white-bearded hermit Birds of the Amazon rainforest white-bearded hermit Taxonomy articles created by Polbot