The fiery-throated hummingbird (''Panterpe insignis'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

hummingbird 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 ar ...

in the "mountain gems"

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...

Lampornithini in subfamily Trochilinae. It is found in Costa Rica and

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

.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 fiery-throated hummingbird is the only member of genus ''Panterpe''. It has two subspecies, the nominate ''P. i. insignis'' and ''P. i. eisenmanni''.

Description

The fiery-throated hummingbird is long. Males weigh and females . Within each subspecies the male and female are alike. All have a mostly black bill with a pink base to 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 bon ...

and a small white spot behind the eye. The nominate ''P. i. insignis'' has a glittering royal blue crown and the rest of the face and nape are black. The back is bright metallic green that becomes bluish green on the uppertail coverts. The tail is blue-black. The center of the throat is brilliant rosy coppery orange and the sides are golden green. It has a violet-blue patch on the center of the breast and the rest of the underparts are bright green to blue-green. Subspecies ''P. i. eisenmanni'' is slightly smaller than the nominate but has a much shorter bill. The black of the neck extends onto the upper back and the blue-violet of the chest extends into the belly. The uppertail coverts are mostly blue.Stiles, F.G. and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Fiery-throated Hummingbird (''Panterpe insignis''), 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.fithum1.01 retrieved 13 May 2022

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of fiery-throated hummingbird is found from the Cordillera de Tilarán in north-central Costa Rica southeast to

Bocas del Toro Bocas del Toro (; meaning "Mouth of the Bull") is a province of Panama. Its area is 4,643.9 square kilometers, comprising the mainland and nine main islands. The province consists of the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Bahía Almirante (Almirante Bay ...

and Chiriquí provinces of far western Panama. ''P. i. eisenmanni'' is restricted to the Cordillera de Guanacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. The species inhabits a variety of wooded landscapes including

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucia ...

cloudforest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud ...

and

elfin forest Dwarf forest, elfin forest, or pygmy forest is an uncommon ecosystem featuring miniature trees, inhabited by small species of fauna such as rodents and lizards. They are usually located at high elevations, under conditions of sufficient air humi ...

. It also occurs in more open landscapes like the lower edge of ''

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrowe ...

'',

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

, and pastures with many trees. It mostly remains in the forest canopy but occurs in shrubs low down at the forest edge and in clearings. In northern and north-central Costa Rica it occurs at elevations from to summits at up to ; further south in higher mountains it ranges between .

Behavior

Movement

In at least parts of its range, the fiery-throated hummingbird moves to lower elevations after breeding, though rarely below .

Feeding

The fiery-throated hummingbird feeds on nectar taken from a variety of small flowers, including those of

epiphytic An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

Ericaceae The Ericaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the heath or heather family, found most commonly in acidic and infertile growing conditions. The family is large, with c.4250 known species spread across 124 genera, making it th ...

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa ...

s, shrubs, and small trees. At flowers too deep for its bill it will take nectar from holes made by itself, bumblebees, and

flowerpiercer ''Diglossa'' is a genus in the family Thraupidae. They are commonly known as flowerpiercers because of their habit of piercing the base of flowers to access nectar that otherwise would be out of reach. This is done with their highly modified bill ...

s. The species is aggressive and dominant over most other hummingbirds. Males defend feeding territories during the breeding season but allow females to feed; both sexes defend territories post-breeding. In addition to nectar, the species captures small

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

s on the wing and sometimes by gleaning from foliage.

Breeding

The fiery-throated hummingbird's breeding season in Costa Rica spans from August to January. The female is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in a bulky cup nest of plant fibers whose outside is covered with moss and lichen. The nest is typically placed high at the end of a descending

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

stem or on a rootlet under a bank. The incubation length and time to fledging have not been documented.

Vocalization

The fiery-throated hummingbird does not appear to have a true song. One call is "a repeated nasal, squeaky 'kek...kek...', given in fast series". Another is "a complex fast liquid twittering with sudden squeaky rises in pitch."

Status

The IUCN has assessed the fiery-throated hummingbird as being of Least Concern. Though it has a small range, its population is estimated to be between 50,000 and 500,000 mature individuals and the number is believed to be stable. Much of its range is protected in preserves and national parks, and it is considered common to abundant throughout.

External links

*
Fiery-throated hummingbird at Beauty of Birds website

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q963376 fiery-throated hummingbird Birds of the Talamancan montane forests Hummingbird species of Central America fiery-throated hummingbird