Rivoli's hummingbird (''Eugenes fulgens''), also known as the magnificent hummingbird, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

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 "mountain gems", tribe

Lampornithini Lampornithini is one of the three Tribe (biology), tribes that make up the subfamily Trochilinae in the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The other two tribes in the subfamily are Mellisugini (bees) and Trochilini (emeralds). The ...

in subfamily

Trochilinae Trochilinae is one of the six subfamily, subfamilies that make up the hummingbird family (biology), family Trochilidae. The subfamily is divided into three Tribe (biology), tribes: Lampornithini (mountain gems) containing 18 species, Mellisugini ...

. It is found in

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

.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

''Eugenes fulgens'' was originally described as the magnificent hummingbird, and by the late 1800s was treated as having two subspecies. Beginning in 2017 the North American Classification Committee of the

American Ornithological Society The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is an ornithological organization based in the United States. The society was formed in October 2016 by the merger of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and the Cooper Ornithological Society. Its ...

(NACC), the

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

(IOC), and the

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

split them into the current Rivoli's hummingbird and the Talamanca hummingbird (''E. spectabilis''). However, as of 2020,

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

(HBW) retains the single species "magnificent" hummingbird treatment. Rivoli's hummingbird is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

. Rivoli's hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) male Finca El Pilar 3.jpg, male Rivoli's hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) male Finca El Pilar 2.jpg, male, showing purple head and chest feathers Rivoli's hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens) female Finca El Pilar.jpg, female

Description

Rivoli's hummingbird is about long and weighs about , with males typically a little larger than females. It has a wingspan of . Of the hummingbirds found in the United States, Rivoli's hummingbird is one of the two largest species, rivaled in size only by the blue-throated hummingbird. The black bill is long and straight to slightly decurved. Both sexes look very dark unless the sun catches the

iridescence Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear gradually to change colour as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Iridescence is caused by wave interference of light in microstru ...

of the

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

and the brilliant colors flash in the sunlight. During much of the year the species is in the "definitive basic" breeding plumage described below. It has a protracted

molt In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at ...

between that plumage and the duller non-breeding appearance. There are some minor clinal variations in bill length and the color of the vent area.Powers, D. R., R. Partida-Lara, and P. L. Enríquez (2020). Rivoli's Hummingbird (''Eugenes fulgens''), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.maghum1.01 retrieved 11 May 2022 The adult male is green-bronze dorsally, becoming more bronzed on the black-tipped tail. The crown is violet, the throat

gorget A gorget ( ; ) was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the English medieval clothing, medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon (headgear), chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather Collar (c ...

bright blue-green, and the rest of the head black apart from a white spot behind the eye. The chest is green-bronze and the belly grayish. The female is bronze-green dorsally and has a dull gray ventral coloring. There is a white stripe behind her eye. Immature birds are like the female, but darker and browner.

Distribution and habitat

Rivoli's hummingbird breeds in mountains from the

southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural list of regions of the United States, region of the United States that includes Arizona and New Mexico, along with adjacen ...

and

. It inhabits the interior, edges, and clearings of pine-oak forest and

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

from about up to the timberline as well as more open

secondary forest A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has regenerated through largely natural processes after human-caused Disturbance (ecology), disturbances, such as Logging, timber harvest or agriculture clearing, or ...

and some grasslands. It regularly comes to

bird feeders A birdfeeder, bird table, or tray feeder is a device placed outdoors to supply bird food to birds (bird feeding). The success of a bird feeder in attracting birds depends upon its placement and the kinds of foods offered, as different species h ...

Behavior

Movement

Rivoli's hummingbird is migratory in part of its range. It is a year-round resident from north-central Mexico south to northern Nicaragua. It nests but does not overwinter in southeastern Arizona, possibly in southwestern New Mexico, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua,

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, and possibly others. There are summer records in the

Chisos Mountains The Chisos Mountains, also known as the Chisos, are a mountain range located in the Big Bend, Texas, Big Bend area of the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, United States. The mountain system covers 40 square miles (104 square km) and is contained enti ...

of Texas but breeding has not been confirmed there.

Interspecific interaction

Throughout its range Rivoli's hummingbird is subordinate to the larger blue-throated hummingbird. Rivoli's coexists with many other hummingbird species including black-chinned (''Archilocus alexandri'') and broad-tailed (''Selasphorus platycercus''). In Mexico they tend to dominate smaller hummingbirds such as amethyst-throated (''Lampornis amethystinus''), berylline (''Saucerottia beryllina''), and

bumblebee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only Extant taxon, extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct r ...

(''Atthis heloisa'').

Feeding

Rivoli's hummingbird feeds on nectar from a wide variety of flowering plants whose composition varies by season, elevation, and latitude. In parts of Mexico at least, males defend feeding territories. It also feeds on small insects, which apparently make a larger part of its diet than the diets of other North American hummingbirds. It captures them in mid-air or by gleaning from vegetation while hovering.

Breeding

The Rivoli's hummingbird breeding season spans from May to July in the U.S and is possibly year-round in El Salvador. It has not been defined elsewhere. It builds an open cup nest of soft feathers and moss bound with spider silk and covered with

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

. The cup's interior is about deep and wide. They are typically placed on a horizontal branch or in a fork, often in maples and sycamores, and often over streams. They are usually at least above the ground. The female alone incubates the clutch of two white eggs; the period is not known but is probably 15 to 19 days like that of many other hummingbirds. The time to fledging appears to be about 25 days.

Vocalization

What might be Rivoli's hummingbird song is "a loud or high-pitched, sharp ''tchik'' or ''tcheep''." Another possible song is "a short chatter of notes that rise and fall". Males give single or a string of chip notes both while perched and in flight. During aggressive actions or alarm, the species gives a very rapid sequence of chip notes.

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 ...

follows HBW taxonomy and so treats Rivoli's and Talamanca hummingbirds as a single species assessed as being of Least Concern. As a whole it has a large range and an apparently stable population, though the population size is not known. Forest fires are a potential threat in the U.S. because Rivoli's is found only in higher isolated mountain ranges. "Habitat destruction in southern Mexico and Central America may have a longer-lasting impact on populations".

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1189991 Eugenes Native birds of the Southwestern United States Meso-American montane bird species Hummingbird species of Central America Birds described in 1827 Taxa named by William Swainson