The wine-throated hummingbird (''Selasphorus ellioti'') 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 of subfamily Trochilinae, 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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

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 North American Classification Committee 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 ...

, and 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 2022 ...

place the wine-throated hummingbird in genus ''Selasphorus''.

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. T ...

(HBW) places it in genus ''Atthis''. The three worldwide taxonomic systems assign two subspecies, the nominate ''S. e. ellioti''/''A. e. ellioti'' and ''S. e. selasphoroides''/''A. e. selasphoroides''.Clements, 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, 2021

Description

The wine-throated hummingbird is long. Females weigh ; male weights are not documented. Both sexes of both subspecies have a short, straight, blackish bill and a small white spot behind the eye.Thurber, W. A., T. S. Schulenberg, and C. W. Sedgwick (2021). Wine-throated Hummingbird (''Selasphorus ellioti''), 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.withum1.01.1 retrieved July 28, 2022 Males of the nominate subspecies have green upperparts. Their

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 glittering rose pink with violet highlights, and its longer hindward feathers flare out and back. The flanks are a mix of cinnamon and green and the rest of the underparts are whitish. The central pair of tail feathers are green with some rufous at the base. The rest of the tail feathers are rufous with a wide black band near the end; the outermost pair have white tips. The nominate female also has green upperparts. The chin and throat are white with many dusky spots. The upper breast is white, the center of the belly whitish, and the flanks and undertail

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 ...

are cinnamon. The tail has more black and less rufous than the male's, and the outer feathers' tips are more cinnamon than white. Subspecies ''S. e. selasphoroides'' is slightly smaller than the nominate. Males' plumage is similar to the nominate's. However, their gorget has no blue or violet and even looks green at some angles, the underparts are more buff than white, and the outer tail feather tips are buff. The female has smaller metallic spots on the throat, the flanks and undertail coverts are buff, and the inner tail feather tips are dusky and the outer ones buff.

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of wine-throated hummingbird is the more northerly. It is found in southern Mexico's

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, ...

state and much of Guatemala. ''S. e. selasphoroides'' is found in western Honduras and northern El Salvador. The species inhabits several montane landscapes including the interiors, edges, and clearings of semi-humid to humid pine-oak and

evergreen forest An evergreen forest is a forest made up of evergreen trees. They occur across a wide range of climatic zones, and include trees such as conifers and holly in cold climates, eucalyptus, Live oak, acacias, magnolia, and banksia in more temperate zone ...

, and also adjacent shrublands. In elevation it ranges between .

Behavior

Feeding

The wine-throated hummingbird forages for nectar at a variety of flowering plants, though details of its diet are lacking. It feeds at all levels of the vegetation but favors the low to middle heights; it hovers to feed. It is assumed to also eat 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 like most other hummingbirds.

Breeding

Male wine-throated hummingbirds display for females at dispersed

leks A lek is an aggregation of male animals gathered to engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to entice visiting females which are surveying prospective partners with which to mate. A lek can also indicate an avail ...

, where they sing from an exposed branch. The species' nesting season has not been documented but could extend from August to February. Almost 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 ...

Vocal and non-vocal sounds

The wine-throated hummingbird's song is "a series of high, slightly buzzy, squeaky chips that break into a warble." It also makes "high, thin, sharp chips, often repeated steadily, ''sip-sip'' ... or ''cheup cheup'' ..., etc." The male's wings make a "thrum" sound when hovering to feed and also during

agonistic An agonist is a chemical that activates a receptor to produce a biological response. Receptors are cellular proteins whose activation causes the cell to modify what it is currently doing. In contrast, an antagonist blocks the action of the agoni ...

encounters with other males.

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 wine-throated hummingbird as being of Least Concern. It has a large range and a population estimated at between 20,000 and 50,000 mature individuals. However, the latter is believed to be decreasing. The Mexican government considers it Threatened because its highland forest habitat is under pressure of clearing for agriculture and grazing.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q525136

wine-throated hummingbird The wine-throated hummingbird (''Selasphorus ellioti'') is a species of hummingbird in tribe Mellisugini of subfamily Trochilinae, the "bee hummingbirds". It is found in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Taxonomy and systematics T ...

Hummingbird species of Central America Birds of Mexico Birds of Guatemala Birds of Honduras

Taxa named by Robert Ridgway Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN