Violet-headed hummingbird

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Violet-headed hummingbird
Violet-headed hummingbird ♀

Violet-headed hummingbird ♀

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Sailor birds (Apodiformes)
Family : Hummingbirds (Trochilidae)
Genre : Klais
Type : Violet-headed hummingbird
Scientific name of the  genus
Klais
Reichenbach , 1854
Scientific name of the  species
Klais guimeti
( Bourcier , 1843)

The violet-headed hummingbird ( Klais guimeti ) is a species of bird in the family of hummingbirds (Trochilidae). The species occurs in the countries of Honduras , Nicaragua , Costa Rica , Panama , Colombia , Venezuela , Ecuador , Peru and Bolivia . The IUCN assesses the population as Least Concern .

features

The violet-headed hummingbird reaches a body length of approx. 7.9 cm with a body weight of only approx. 2.8 g, with the wings 5.2 cm, the tail 29 mm and the short, straight beak 13 mm long. The skull and throat of the male are purple blue. There is a small white spot behind the eye. The upper side, the wing covers and the flanks are bronze green. The color changes to light green on the back. The underside is gray, whitish-gray on the under tail-coverts. The wings are blackish purple. The blue-green tail feathers are significantly more green at the root and blackish-blue at the end with a green end border. The female has a blue-green skull and also the small white spot behind the eye. While the top is shiny green, the entire bottom is gray. The flanks are bronze green, the central tail feathers green. The lateral tail feathers are green in the root half with a steel blue subterminal band and gray tips. The wings are blackish-purple as in the male.

behavior

When it comes to feeding, the birds are considered solitary animals, which mainly seek out the lower and middle strata . Here it is flowering undergrowth and bushes that are located near the edges of the forest, which they prefer to fly to. These have little nectar content or are plants that are pollinated by insects . Often they communicate with other hummingbirds on larger bushes and invade the territory of other larger hummingbird species as nectar thieves . Every now and then they defend their own little territory. Sometimes they also fly to flowers in tree tops - for example of the genus Inga - by fluttering up and down on vines, trunks and leaves. They also occasionally hunt insects. Their flight is similar to that of bees.

habitat

Preferred habitats are mountain foothills with erratic blocks . In the drier times they move to drier forests at altitudes between 150 and 1900 meters. They prefer moist forest edges and secondary vegetation with clearings and bushes. In Peru they are found on the eastern slopes of the Andes.

Reproduction

As with many other hummingbird species, the males do not help with building nests. In Costa Rica, females start building nests in the dry month of February to mid-May. The nests are built in forests or near river banks, and occasionally near shady mountain torrents between grass and bushes not far from the forest. The nests are at heights between one and five meters. They lay their eggs over a period of two days. Usually there are two white elliptical eggs in the nest.

Vocalizations

Your call sounds like short, sharp tsit tones or, when eating, like a rolling twittering. They mostly sing alone, but also in loose communities. They tirelessly sing their high pitsit sounds or more structured tsit, tsit, tsit, tsitsisisi songs that last about 3 seconds. They sit on exposed branches at heights between 4 and 20 meters.

Subspecies

Distribution area (green) of the violet-headed hummingbird

There are three known subspecies:

  • Klais guimeti merrittii ( Lawrence , 1861) - This subspecies is found in eastern Honduras to the west and north of the Amazon.
  • Klais guimeti guimeti ( Bourcier , 1843) - The nominate form occurs in eastern Colombia and northern Venezuela and from eastern Ecuador to northwestern Peru. In 1968 Augusto Ruschi expanded the distribution area to include Brazil , which is why the country was often mentioned in literature. In an analysis from 1995, however , José Fernando Pacheco cast doubt on Ruschi's analysis, so that Brazil is no longer recognized as a distribution area today.
  • Klais guimeti pallidiventris Stolzmann , 1926 - The subspecies occurs in eastern Peru and western Bolivia.

Etymology and history of research

Jules Bourcier described the hummingbird under the name Trochilus Guimeti . The type specimen for the description came from Caracas . It was Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach who classified it in the new genus Klais in 1854 . This name comes from "Kleis" a daughter of Sappho . The specific epithet »guimeti« is dedicated to the French chemist Jean Baptiste Guimet (1795–1871). "Merrittii" honors Joseph King Merritt (1824–1882), the man who collected the type specimen in the province of Veraguas in what was then the viceroyalty of New Granada . Finally, »pallidiventris« is derived from the Latin »pallidus« for »pale« and »venter, ventris« for »belly«.

literature

  • Steven Leon Hilty, John A. Gwynne, Guy Tudor : Birds of Venezuela . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2002, ISBN 0-691-09250-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Steven Leon Hilty, William Leroy Brown: A guide to the birds of Colombia . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1986, ISBN 978-0-691-08372-8 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Thomas Scott Schulenberg, Douglas Forrester Stotz, Daniel Franklin Lane, John Patton O'Neill, Theodore Albert Parker III: Birds of Peru . Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 2007, ISBN 978-0-7136-8673-9 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Augusto Ruschi: A distribuição geográfica de Klais guimeti guimeti (Bourcier, 1843) e algumas observações sobre a sua biologia e ecologia (Trochilidae - Aves) . In: Boletim do Museu de Biologia Mello Leitão (=  Zoologia ). No. 33 , 1968, pp. 1–9 ( online [PDF; 1000 kB ]).
  • José Fernando Pacheco: O Brasil perde cinco espécies de aves! Uma análise crítica dos registros de Ruschi para alguns beija-flores das fronteiras setentrionais brasileiras . In: Atualidades Ornitológicas . No. 66 , 1995, pp. 7 ( online [accessed November 17, 2014]).
  • Alexander Frank Skutch: Life history of the Violet-headed Hummingbird . In: The Wilson Bulletin . tape 70 , no. 1 , 1958, p. 5–19 ( online [PDF; 955 kB ; accessed on November 17, 2014]).
  • James A. Jobling: Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4 .
  • Jules Bourcier: Oiseaux-mouches nouveaux ou mal connus . In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne . tape 5 , 1843, p. 70-73 ( online [accessed November 17, 2014]).
  • Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach: Enumeration of the hummingbirds or trochilids in their true natural relationship with key to their synonymy . In: Journal of Ornithology . tape 2 , special issue, 1854, p. 1-24 ( online [accessed November 17, 2014]).
  • George Newbold Lawrence: Description of three new species of Humming-birds of Genera Heliomaster, Amazilia, and Mellisuga . In: Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York . tape 7 , 1860, p. 107–111 ( online [accessed November 17, 2014]).
  • Jan Sztolcman: Revision of the oiseaux néotropicaux de la collection du Musée Polonais d'Histoire Naturelle à Varsovie . In: Annales Zoologici Musei Polonici Historiae Naturalis . tape 5 , no. 4 , 1926, pp. 197–235 ( online [PDF; accessed November 17, 2014]).

Web links

Commons : Violet-headed Hummingbird  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Steven Leon Hilty u. a. (2002), p. 405.
  2. ↑ a b Steven Leon Hilty u. a. (2002), p. 406.
  3. ↑ Steven Leon Hilty et al. a. (1986), p. 262.
  4. ↑ Thomas Scott Schulenberg u. a., p. 224.
  5. ↑ Alexander Frank Skutch, p. 7.
  6. ↑ Alexander Frank Skutch, p. 11.
  7. ↑ Alexander Frank Skutch, p. 13.
  8. ^ IOC World Bird List Hummingbirds
  9. ↑ a b George Newbold Lawrence, p. 110.
  10. ↑ a b Jules Bourcier, p. 72.
  11. ^ Augusto Ruschi (1968)
  12. ↑ José Fernando Pacheco, p. 7.
  13. ↑ Jan Sztolcman, p. 213.
  14. ↑ Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach, p. 13.
  15. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 214.
  16. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 181.
  17. ↑ James A. Jobling, p. 289.