The white-throated daggerbill, white-throated wedgebill, or western wedge-billed hummingbird (''Schistes albogularis'') is a species of hummingbird in the family

Trochilidae 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 ...

. It is found in Colombia and

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: ' ...

.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. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved August 24, 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The white-throated daggerbill has often been considered

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organis ...

with what is now the only other member of its genus, Geoffroy's daggerbill (''S. geoffroyi'') under the name "wedge-billed hummingbird". The South American Classification Committee (SACC) 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 ...

split them in June 2018 and 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), 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 202 ...

, and BirdLife International's '' Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) followed suit. Later all of them except HBW adopted the "daggerbill" English name; HBW uses the name "western wedge-billed hummingbird". Some authors have suggested that the genus be merged into that of the visorbearers, '' Augastes''. The white-throated daggerbill 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 "unispe ...

.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. Recent Changes. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCRecentChanges.htm retrieved December 13, 2021Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021HBW 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 May 27, 2021

Description

The white-throated daggerbill is long and weighs . It gets its name from the tip of its bill, which is very narrow and sharply pointed. Both sexes are generally green overall. Males have a shiny green forehead, violet-blue patches on the sides of the throat that can extend well up into the face, a white band across the upper chest, and a small white patch behind the eye. Females' foreheads are not shiny, the throat patches are smaller and mostly blue, and they have an unmarked white throat.del Hoyo, J., N. Collar, G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2021). White-throated Daggerbill (''Schistes albogularis''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.webhum3.01.1 retrieved December 13, 2021

Distribution and habitat

The white-throated daggerbill is found from the western Andes and the west slope of the Central Andes of Colombia south into western Ecuador. It inhabits the interior and edges of dense

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 ...

, often near streams. In elevation it ranges between .

Behavior

Movement

The white-throated daggerbill is mostly sedentary but makes some elevational dispersion after the breeding season.

Feeding

The white-throated daggerbill forages in dense vegetation from near the ground to medium heights. It collects nectar from tubular flowers of a variety of shrubs, vines, and small trees and often "robs" nectar by piercing the base of a flower. It also captures small insects on the wing or sometimes by gleaning from vegetation.

Breeding

Nothing is known about the white-throated daggerbill's breeding phenology.

Vocalization

The white-throated daggerbill's song is "a series of two different high-pitched notes repeated, 'tsit...seet...tsit...seet...', at an irregular pace".

Status

The IUCN has assessed the white-throated daggerbill as being of Least Concern. Though its population size is unknown it is believed to be stable. It is considered rare to locally common and occurs in several protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q30688437 white-throated daggerbill Birds of the Colombian Andes Birds of the Ecuadorian Andes white-throated daggerbill