Koepcke's hermit (''Phaethornis koepckeae'') is a species of

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

in the family

Trochilidae Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Taxonomy and systematics

Koepcke's 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 "unisp ...

. It and the needle-billed hermit (''P. philippii'') are

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

and may form a

superspecies In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

.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

Description

Koepcke's hermit is long. Males weigh and females . It is one of the few hermit hummingbirds with a nearly straight bill. It has a blackish crown glossed with greenish, a glossy greenish bronze nape, a glossy bronze back, and a rufous rump. The tail is mostly dark glossy green. The innermost pair of tail feathers are longer than the others and have white tips; the others have broad buffy rufous tips. The face has a black "mask" bordered with narrow white streaks. The chin and throat are white, the center of the breast pale reddish buff with grayer sides, and the belly and flanks a rich reddish buff.Schulenberg, T. S. (2020). Koepcke's Hermit (''Phaethornis koepckeae''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.koeher1.01 retrieved December 7, 2021

Distribution and habitat

Koepcke's hermit is found on the eastern foothills of the Peruvian Andes from just south of the

Marañón River The Marañón River (, , ) is the principal or mainstem source of the Amazon River, arising about 160 km (100 miles) to the northeast of Lima, Peru, and flowing northwest across plateaus 3,650 m (12,000 feet) high, it runs through a deeply ero ...

in Amazonas south to central Madre de Dios. In elevation it ranges between , and the distribution is patchy. It inhabits the understory of tall

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 zo ...

and humid

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

. It generally shuns

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

Behavior

Feeding

Koepcke's hermit is assumed to be 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 ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

Breeding

The breeding season of Koepcke's hermit has not been defined. It builds a conical nest suspended from the underside of the tip of a drooping leaf.

Vocalization

Koepcke's hermit's song is "a ringing, buzzy series of short notes: ''b'zee b'zee b'zee''" Its calls include "a ringing, rising ''tchwee'' or ''tchwing'' and "a descending, accelerating series of high notes".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

has assessed Koepcke's hermit as Near Threatened. Its population is estimated to be between 6,000 and 15,000 mature individuals and decreasing. "It is threatened by rapid deforestation within its elevational range."

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q734669

Koepcke's hermit Koepcke's hermit (''Phaethornis koepckeae'') is a species of hummingbird in the family Trochilidae. It is endemic to Peru. Taxonomy and systematics Koepcke's hermit is monotypic. It and the needle-billed hermit (''P. philippii'') are sister sp ...

Birds of the Cordillera Oriental (Peru) Endemic birds of Peru

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot