The buff-thighed puffleg (''Haplophaedia assimilis'') 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 "brilliants", tribe

Heliantheini Heliantheini is one of the two Tribe (biology), tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae of the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The other tribe in the subfamily is Lesbiini. The informal name "brilliants" has been proposed f ...

in subfamily

Lesbiinae Lesbiinae is one of the six subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into two tribes: Heliantheini ("brilliants") containing 14 genera and Lesbiini ("coquettes") containing 18 genera. Phylogeny A mol ...

. It is found in

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

and

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 ...

.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world'' Version 5. Available at: http://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v5_Dec20.zip xls zipped 1 MBretrieved 27 May 2021

Taxonomy and systematics

The buff-thighed puffleg was for a time considered to be a subspecies of

greenish puffleg The greenish puffleg (''Haplophaedia aureliae'') is a species of hummingbird in the "brilliants", tribe Heliantheini in subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of ...

(''H. aureliae'') but was then returned to full species status. As of early 2022 it is again under consideration for reinclusion in ''H. aureliae'' but the proposal does not have much support. It has two recognized subspecies, the nominate ''H. a. assimilis'' and ''H. a. affinis''.

Description

The buff-thighed puffleg is long and weighs . It has a straight blackish bill. Adults of both sexes of the nominate subspecies are mostly dark green and have a slightly forked blue-black tail. Their namesake leg puffs are creamy buff to whitish. ''H. a. affinis'' is a darker green overall and has a bluer tail; its leg puffs are pale rufous. Juveniles are like adults with the addition of brown fringes on the feathers of the head and neck.Heynen, I. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Buff-thighed Puffleg (''Haplophaedia assimilis''), 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/bow.butpuf1.01 retrieved March 11, 2022

Distribution and habitat

Subspecies ''H. a. affinis'' of the buff-thighed puffleg is the more northerly of the two. It is found on the eastern slope of the Andes in northern and central Peru. The nominate ''H. a. assimilis'' is found from the eastern Andean slope of Peru's

Department of Cuzco Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth-largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de Dios and Puno ...

southeast into central Bolivia as far as

Cochabamba Department Cochabamba (, , ), from Quechua ''qucha'' or ''qhucha'', meaning "lake", ''pampa'' meaning "plain", is one of the nine departments of Bolivia. It is known to be the " granary" of the country because of its variety of agricultural products from ...

. It inhabits the undergrowth and edges of humid to wet pre-

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 ...

. In elevation it ranges between but seldom occurs above .

Behavior

Movement

The buff-thighed puffleg is thought to seasonally disperse to the lower parts of its elevational range.

Feeding

The buff-thighed puffleg mostly feeds near the ground, taking nectar from small groups of flowers. It is territorial and defends clusters of flowering bushes. In addition to nectar, it feeds on insects that it usually gleans from leaves but occasionally catches by hawking from a perch.

Breeding

Almost nothing is known about the buff-thighed puffleg's breeding

phenology Phenology is the study of periodic events in biological life cycles and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation). Examples include the date of emergence of leav ...

. It is known that the female alone incubates the clutch of two white eggs.

Vocalization

What is thought to be the buff-thighed puffleg's song is "a repeated single strident note 'tsuk...tsuk...tsuk...'... occasionally interspersed by a double-noted 'tsi-tsuk'". It also makes "a dry rattle and some chattering notes in series."

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 the buff-thighed puffleg as being of Least Concern, though its population size is not known and is believed to be decreasing. It appears to be "generally fairly common" though ''H. a. affinis'' is known from only a few localities.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1033761 buff-thighed puffleg Birds of the Peruvian Andes Birds of the Bolivian Andes buff-thighed puffleg Taxonomy articles created by Polbot