The tufted coquette (''Lophornis ornatus'') is a tiny hummingbird that breeds in eastern

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 ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

, Guiana, and northern

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 ...

. It is an uncommon but widespread species, and appears to be a local or seasonal migrant, although its movements are not well understood. This small bird inhabits open country, gardens, and cultivated areas.

Taxonomy

The tufted coquette was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...

in 1781 in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux''. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Martinet engraved the plates for numerous works on natural history, especially ornithology. Notable in particular are those for ''l'Ornithologia, sive Synop ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Univers ...

coined the binomial name ''Trochilus ornatus'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The type locality is Cayenne in

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

. The tufted coquette is now placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

Lophornis ''Lophornis'' is a genus of hummingbird in the family Trochilidae. These are all tiny birds, ranking among the smallest hummingbirds. No species exceeds and most are under in total length, weighing 3 grams or less. The male coquettes are noted ...

'' that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1829. The species 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 ...

. The generic 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 p ...

''lophos'' meaning "crest" or "tuft" with ''ornis'' meaning "bird". The specific epithet ''ornatus'' is Latin for "ornate" or "adorned".

Description

The tufted coquette is long and weighs . The black-tipped red bill is short and straight. The male has a

rufous Rufous () is a color that may be described as reddish-brown or brownish-red, as of rust or oxidised iron. The first recorded use of ''rufous'' as a color name in English was in 1782. However, the color is also recorded earlier in 1527 as a dia ...

head crest and a coppery green back with a whitish rump band that is prominent in flight. The forehead and underparts are green, and black-spotted rufous plumes project from the neck sides. The tail is golden rufous. The female lacks the crest and plumes. She has green upperparts (dorsal), except for the whitish tail band, and rufous underparts (ventral) that become much paler on the belly. The tail is mostly bronze green with a dusky band and whitish tips to the feathers. Immature males resemble the female, but their throats are whitish with fine dark spotting. The female tufted coquette lays two eggs in a small cup nest made of plant down and placed on a branch. Tufted coquettes are tame and approachable. The call of this species while feeding is a light ''chik''. Their food is nectar, taken from a variety of flowers, and some small invertebrates. With their small size and steady flight, these birds often resemble a large bee as it moves from flower to flower.

References

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External links

Tufted coquette videos
on the Internet Bird Collection

(for Guyana, Suriname,

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

)
Tufted coquette photo gallery
VIRE
Photo-High Res
{{Taxonbar, from=Q930558 Lophornis Birds of Venezuela Birds of the Guianas Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Hummingbird species of South America Birds described in 1783