Blue-capped amazily

Blue-capped amazily
	Blue-capped Amazonia ( Amazilia cyanifrons )
Systematics
Class :	Birds (aves)
Order :	Sailor birds (Apodiformes)
Family :	Hummingbirds (Trochilidae)
Genre :	Amazilia hummingbirds ( Amazilia )
Type :	Blue-capped amazily
Scientific name
	Amazilia cyanifrons
	( Bourcier , 1843)

The blue-capped amazilie ( Amazilia cyanifrons ), also Indigostirnamazilie or Indigostirnchen , is a species of bird from the family of the hummingbirds (Trochilidae). The species is endemic to Colombia . The IUCN assesses the population as Least Concern .

Blue-capped Parasols
(lithograph by Henry Constantine Richter after a drawing by John Gould , 1856)

features

The blue-capped amazily reaches a body length of about 9.1 cm, with the straight beak 1.8 cm long. The lower bill is mostly red. The upper head of the male is indigo blue , the rest of the upper side shimmers green, but turns into a copper-bronze color at the rump. The entire underside glitters green. She has little white tufts on her legs. The blue-black tail is slightly forked. The coloring of the females is a little more cloudy.

behavior

The birds are extremely contentious about the flowers, which can be in the most varied of strata . They usually collect in the flowering tree tops, which can be up to 18 meters high. They are considered combative and territorial . Among other things, they fly to the flowers of the Guzmania genus, which belongs to the bromeliad family . They like to stay near cherry myrtle trees . David William Snow and Barbara Kathleen Snow observed how they attacked sugar birds ( Coereba flaveola ) with relatively little success and Andean macaws ( Amazilia franciae ) with much more success . They left a black-breasted mango ( Anthracothorax nigricollis ) in peace, which was also looking for food in their territory. After dusk you can occasionally see them sitting on branches and singing. They occasionally hunt insects.

Reproduction

Melbourne Armstrong Carriker observed six breeding females in the southwest of Huila in April and four more females in Popayán in July. At Togüí , the birds were observed building their nests in August.

Vocalizations

The blue-capped amazily expresses monosyllabic sip or sick tones.

Distribution area

Distribution area (green) of the blue-capped amazily

They usually move at altitudes of 400 to 1200 meters. They are from the Central to the upper reaches of the Magdalena River on Togüí in western Boyacá Department to the south and southwest of the Departamento del Huila and the upper reaches of the Rio Cauca near Popayan and in the east of the Andes of Norte de Santander Department disseminated .

Subspecies

In addition to the nominate form, the bellows collected by Cecil Frank Underwood (1867–1943) on Miravalles was treated as another subspecies Amazilia cyanifrons alfaroana . In 2002 André-Alexander Weller examined the only existing type specimen in the Natural History Museum at Tring and came to the conclusion that this subspecies should be granted species status because of its unique coloration. The North American Classification Committee recognized that the status of a subspecies of Amazilia cyanifrons was not warranted, but cautioned that it might be a hybrid and that further research is needed.

Etymology and history of research

Jules Bourcier described the blue-capped amazily under the name Trochilus cyanifrons . The type specimen came from Ibagué in what was then the viceroyalty of New Granada . In the same year, René Primevère Lesson introduced the generic name Amazilia for the bronze headed parrot ( Amazilia candida ). The green-bellied amazily was later assigned to this genus. The name comes from Jean-François Marmontel's novel Les Incas, Ou La Destruction De L'Empire Du Pérou , in which an Inca heroine named Amazili appears. The epithet "cyanifrons" is from the Latin "cyaneus" or Greek "kyaneos κυανεος " for "dunkelbau" and "frons, frontis" for "forehead, brow" together. »Alfaroana« is dedicated to Anastasio Alfaro (1865–1951).

literature

Steven Leon Hilty, William Leroy Brown: A guide to the birds of Colombia . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1986, ISBN 978-0-691-08372-8 ( books.google.de [accessed January 22, 2014]).
André-Alexander Weller : On types of trochilids in the Natural History Museum, Tring III. Amazilia alfaroana Underwood (1896), with notes on biogeography and geographical variation in the Saucerottia saucerrottei superspecies . In: Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club . tape 121 , no. 2 , 2001, p. 98-107 ( biodiversitylibrary.org [accessed January 22, 2015]).
James A. Jobling: Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 .
Jules Bourcier: Oiseaux-mouches nouveaux . In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne . tape 6 , 1843, pp. 99-104 ( biodiversitylibrary.org [accessed January 22, 2015]).
René Primevère Lesson: Complément à l'histoire naturelle des oiseaux-mouches . In: L'Echo du Monde Savant . Series 2, volume 10 , no. 32 , 1843, pp. 755-758 .
René Primevère Lesson, Prosper Garnot: Voyage autour du monde exécuté par Ordre du Roi, sur la Corvette de Sa Majesté, La Coquille pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825, sous le ministère et conformément aux instructions de SEM Marquis de Clermont- Tonnerre, ministre de la marine; et publié sou les auspices de son excellence Mgr le Cte de Chabrol, ministre de la Marine et des colonies, par ML Dupppery, capitaine de frégate. chevalier de Saint-Louis et membre de la legion d'honaire, commandant de l'expédition . tape 1 : Zoology , No. 2 . Arthus-Bertrand, Paris 1828 ( biodiversitylibrary.org [accessed January 22, 2015]).
Cecil Frank Underwood: A List of Birds collected or observed on the Lower, Southern, and South-western Slopes of the Volcano of Miravalles and on the lower lands extending to Bagaces in Costa Rica, with a few Observations on their Habit . In: The Ibis . Series 7, volume 2 , no. 8 , 1896, pp. 431-451 ( biodiversitylibrary.org [accessed January 22, 2015]).
Richard Charles Banks, Carla Cicero, Jon Lloyd Dunn, Andrew Ward Kratter, Pamela Cecile Rasmussen, James Vanderbeek Remsen Jr., James David Rising, Douglas Forrester Stotz: Forty-third supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American Birds . In: The Auk . tape 119 , no. 3 , 2002, p. 897–906 ( aou.org [PDF; 111 kB ; accessed on January 22, 2015]).
David William Snow, Barbara Kathleen Snow: Relationships between hummingbirds and flowers in the Andes of Colombia . In: Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History . tape 38 , no. 2 , 1980, p. 105–139 ( archive.org [PDF; 13.8 MB ; accessed on January 22, 2015]).