Heliantheini is one of the two

tribes 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 ...

that make up the 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 ...

of the hummingbird

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Trochilidae 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 ...

. The other tribe in the subfamily is

Lesbiini Lesbiini is one of the two tribes that make up the subfamily Lesbiinae in the hummingbird family Trochilidae. The other tribe is Heliantheini (brilliants). The informal name "coquettes" has been proposed for this group as the largest genus, ...

. The informal name "brilliants" has been proposed for this group as it includes the genus ''

Heliodoxa ''Heliodoxa'' is a genus of hummingbirds in the family Trochilidae. Taxonomy The genus ''Heliodoxa'' was introduced in 1850 by the English ornithologist John Gould. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek ''hēlios'' meaning "sun" and ''doxa ...

'' that has nine species with "brilliant" in their common name. The tribe contains 53 species divided into 14 genera.

Phylogeny

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

study of the hummingbirds published in 2007 found that the family was composed of nine major

clades A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term ...

. When

Edward Dickinson Edward Dickinson (January 1, 1803 – June 16, 1874) was an American politician from Massachusetts. He is also known as the father of the poet Emily Dickinson; their family home in Amherst, the Dickinson Homestead, is a museum dedicated to her. ...

and

James Van Remsen, Jr. James Vanderbeek "Van" Remsen Jr. (born September 21, 1949) is an American ornithologist. His main research field is the Neotropical avifauna. In 1999, he founded the South American Classification Committee.J. V. Remsen Jr.: The South American Cla ...

updated the ''

Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World The ''Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World'' is a book by Richard Howard and Alick Moore which presents a list of the bird species of the world. It was the first single-volume world bird list to include subspecies names, ...

'' for the 4th edition in 2013 they divided the hummingbirds into six

subfamilies In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

and proposed using the name Heliantheini for one of the two

in the subfamily

. The tribe Heliantheini had been introduced (as a subfamily Heliantheinae) by the German naturalist

Ludwig Reichenbach Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (8 January 1793 – 17 March 1879) was a German botanist and ornithologist. It was he who first requested Leopold Blaschka to make a set of glass marine invertebrate models for scientific education and museum ...

in 1854.

Cladogram

Molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

studies by Jimmy McGuire and collaborators published between 2007 and 2014 determined the relationships between the major groups of hummingbirds. In the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

below the English names are those introduced in 1997. The Latin names are those proposed by Dickinson and Remsen in 2013. The phylogeny of the Heliantheini based on a

study published in 2014 is shown below. ''Loddigesia'' (

marvelous spatuletail The marvelous spatuletail (''Loddigesia mirabilis'') is an Endangered species of hummingbird in the "brilliants", tribe Heliantheini in subfamily Lesbiinae. It is endemic to northern Peru.HBW and BirdLife International (2020) ''Handbook of the ...

) was found to be embedded within ''Eriocnemis''.

Taxonomic list

The tribe contains 14 genera.

References

Sources

* {{Taxonbar, from= Q105081530, from2= Q16557283 * Bird tribes