Red star brilliant hummingbird

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Red star brilliant hummingbird
Red star brilliant hummingbird ♂

Red star brilliant hummingbird ♂

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Sailor birds (Apodiformes)
Family : Hummingbirds (Trochilidae)
Tribe : Coeligini
Genre : Heliodoxa
Type : Red star brilliant hummingbird
Scientific name
Heliodoxa imperatrix
( Gould , 1856)

The red star brilliant hummingbird ( Heliodoxa imperatrix ) or empress brilliant is a species of bird from the hummingbird family (Trochilidae), which is widespread in Colombia and Ecuador . The IUCN assesses the population as Least Concern . The species is considered to be monotypical .

features

Red star brilliant hummingbird ♀

The male red star brilliant hummingbird reaches a body length of about 15 to 17 cm with a weight of 9.3 g. The female is slightly smaller and lighter with a body length of about 12 to 13.5 cm and 8.3 g. The beak is black, the feet dark gray. The length of the tail varies widely, especially in adult males. The male's forehead, reins, throat, and chest glisten dark green. In the middle of the throat is a square glittering pale purple spot, the belly glistening golden green. The skull and neck are dark green, the rest of the top is dark bronze green. The central control springs are dark bronze-colored and in the lateral extension black with a bronze-colored tint. The female is bronze-green on the top and the central control feathers. The control springs are matt green on the sides with a bronze tint. The center of the throat and chest are greyish with many bronze-green spots. On the side it changes into a solid bronze-green, on the belly into golden-green. Male juveniles have a dull dark bronze-green chest, throat and head. The center of the throat is dark gray. The reins, chin and sides of the throat are bright yellow-brown. The golden-yellow belly looks more matt and more bronze-colored. The tail is shorter than that of the adult male. Female pups have a throat similar to that of the male pups. Below there are green feathers with yellow-brown fringes. Overall, they look more dull than adult females.

Behavior and nutrition

The red star brilliant hummingbird gets its nectar from the inflorescences of the genera Marcgravia and Marcgraviastrum . He also sits on the inflorescences to be the nectar of the bracts to snag. In front of epiphytic heather plants, it buzzes in front of the hanging flowers. Little data exist on arthropods as a source of food, except that they have been observed collecting leaves and hunting on the fly in the lower and middle strata of the forest.

Vocalizations

The song of the red star brilliant hummingbird consists of tsit tones, which are emitted at a frequency of one tone per second. In flight or when feeding, it also makes these sounds individually.

Reproduction

The breeding season of the red star brilliant hummingbird in western Colombia is from January to April. A fluffy, goblet-shaped nest, which may have been incomplete, was built from balsa silk and cobwebs and was discovered on the crown of a palm tree 10 meters above the ground near the edge of the forest. Two nests from western Colombia were on reinforcing steel supports under the roof of a rarely used cabin. Small goblets made of tree ferns and cobwebs and cotton were also discovered. One abandoned nest contained a hollowed-out white egg about 17 × 10.7 mm in size. Another nest discovered contained two 2 to 3 day old nestlings with closed eyes with yellow bills and gray tips. The skin was gray with tan fringes growing on the back. The nestlings fledge after 22 to 25 days.

distribution and habitat

Distribution area of ​​the red star brilliant hummingbird

The red star brilliant hummingbird prefers very humid promontories and deeper cloud forests , their edges and adjacent secondary vegetation at altitudes of 400 to 2000 meters. Both sexes occur in the upper treetops and a little deeper at their edges. Actually, you only see females in the undergrowth. It is distributed on the Pacific slopes of eastern central Colombia in the south of the Departamento del Chocó to the northwest of Ecuador in the Pichincha province .

Etymology and history of research

The first description of the Red Star brilliant hummingbirds carried out in 1856 by John Gould under the scientific name Eugenia imperatrix . The type specimen came from Ecuador. As early as 1850 Gould introduced the genus Heliodoxa a . a. for the violet-forehead brilliant hummingbird . This name is derived from the Greek words "hēlios, ἡλιος " for "sun" and "doxa, dekhomai δοξα, δεχομαι " for "splendor, glory, approve". The species name »imperatrix« is derived from the Latin »imperatrix, imperatricis« for »empress, beloved«. Gould used the name in honor of Eugénie de Montijo . That is why Gould also used the generic name Eugenia .

literature

Web links

Commons : Red Star Brilliant Hummingbird ( Heliodoxa imperatrix )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ IOC World Bird List Hummingbirds
  2. ↑ a b c d e Frank Garfield Stiles III u. a.
  3. ^ A b John Gould (1856 (1855)), p. 192.
  4. ↑ John Gould (1850), p. 95 f.
  5. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 188.
  6. ↑ James A. Jobling p. 203.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In addition to the violet- forehead brilliant hummingbird, he also classified the green- browed brilliant hummingbird ( Heliodoxa jacula Gould , 1850), the brown-bellied brilliant hummingbird ( Heliodoxa rubinoides ( Bourcier & Mulsant , 1846)) and the ruby hummingbird ( Clytolaema rubricauda ) (Syn. 1783) ( Boddaert , 17 : Heliodoxa rubinia Gould , 1850) to the new genus. With the subspecies Heliodoxa leadbeateri otero , Gould did not seem entirely sure.