The saw-billed hermit (''Ramphodon naevius'') is a 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

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found 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 found else ...

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 ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The saw-billed hermit is placed in mcdonalds the

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

subfamily Phaethornithinae, but among these birds, it is the species most similar to the typical hummingbirds, Trochilinae.Hinkelmann, C. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Saw-billed Hermit (''Ramphodon naevius''), 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 retrieved November 13, 2021 It is the only member of its genus and has no subspecies. Saw-billed Hermit Ramphodon naevius

Description

The saw-billed hermit is long and weighs . It is one of the three heaviest hermits and the male is heavier than the female. Both sexes have saw-like serrations on the

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

and the male's bill has a hooked tip as well. (The unrelated

tooth-billed hummingbird The tooth-billed hummingbird (''Androdon aequatorialis'') is a species of bird from the family Trochilidae. It is monotypic within the genus ''Androdon''. It is found in humid forests in western Colombia, north-western Ecuador (south to Pichinc ...

(''Androdon aequatorialis'') is the only other hummingbird that has a serrated bill.) Both sexes have scaly brown upperparts and dark and pale striped underparts. They have a reddish ochre throat, a dark patch through the eye, and a white supercilium. The upper side of the tail is purplish black while the underside has progressively more buff at the ends to the outer pair of feathers.

Distribution and habitat

The saw-billed hermit is found in a narrow band of southeastern Brazil from the states of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

and

Espírito Santo Espírito Santo (, , ; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attra ...

south to eastern Santa Catarina and northernmost Rio Grande do Sul. It inhabits the understory of the humid coastal Atlantic Forest up to an elevation of .

Behavior

Movement

The saw-billed hermit is presumed to be sedentary, but there is speculation that it makes some short-range movements.

Feeding

The saw-billed hermit feeds on the nectar of a wide range of native and introduced flowering plants; most share the characteristic of tubular blossoms. It typically feeds within about of the ground but has been noted as high as . Like other hermit hummingbirds it is a " trap-line" feeder, visiting a circuit of flowering plants. However, unlike many other trap-liners it defends its route by aggressive behavior towards

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 ...

and other hummingbirds. In addition to nectar, it feeds on small

arthropod Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chiti ...

s gleaned from vegetation.

Breeding

The saw-billed hermit's breeding season has not been fully defined but appears to include July to September. It builds its cone-shaped cup nest from plant material and cobwebs under the tip of a long drooping leaf. Its clutch is two eggs.

Vocalization

The saw-billed hermit's song is a "very high, chattering twitter". Calls include "a sustained, rapid series of very high 'bic' notes" and "a descending series...of 'seee' notes." The calls are apparently used while defending the trap-line.

Status

The IUCN has assessed the saw-billed hermit as Least Concern. " tis suspected to be declining moderately rapidly owing to habitat loss."

References

External links

Saw-billed Hermit photo gallery
VIREO {{Taxonbar, from=Q836998

saw-billed hermit The saw-billed hermit (''Ramphodon naevius'') is a hummingbird in the family Trochilidae. It is endemic to Brazil. Taxonomy and systematics The saw-billed hermit is placed in mcdonalds the hermit subfamily Phaethornithinae, but among these ...

Birds of the Atlantic Forest Endemic birds of Brazil Hummingbird species of South America