The sapphire-bellied hummingbird (''Chrysuronia lilliae'') is an

Endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

species 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 aro ...

in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Taxonomy and systematics

The sapphire-bellied hummingbird was formerly placed in the genera ''Lepidopyga'' and ''Amazilia''. A

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 published in 2014 found that both genera were

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of converg ...

. In the revised classification to create

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

genera, the sapphire-bellied hummingbird was moved by most taxonomic systems to ''

Chrysuronia ''Chrysuronia'' is a genus of hummingbirds in the family Trochilidae. Taxonomy The genus ''Chrysuronia'' was introduced in 1850 by the French naturalist Charles Lucien Bonaparte. Bonaparte did not specify a type species but this was designated a ...

''.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Areta, E. Bonaccorso, S. Claramunt, A. Jaramillo, D. F. Lane, J. F. Pacheco, M. B. Robbins, F. G. Stiles, and K. J. Zimmer. Version 24 July 2022. A classification of the bird species of South America. American Ornithological Society. https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCBaseline.htm retrieved July 24, 2022Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ Retrieved August 25, 2021 However,

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 ...

's ''

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. T ...

'' (HBW) retains it in ''Amazilia''. At times the species has been treated as a subspecies of the

sapphire-throated hummingbird The sapphire-throated hummingbird (''Chrysuronia coeruleogularis'') is a shiny metallic-green hummingbird found in Panama, Colombia, and more recently Costa Rica. The sapphire-throated hummingbird is separated into three subspecies; ''Chrysuroni ...

(''C. coeruleogularis''). The sapphire-bellied 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 "unispec ...

Description

The sapphire-bellied hummingbird is long. Males weigh about . Males' bills have a black

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

and a black-tipped pinkish

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 tooth, teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movabl ...

. They have a shining green crown, back, and rump and their tail is forked and blue-black. They have a glittering purple

gorget A gorget , from the French ' meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the thro ...

and the rest of their underparts are glittering blue. The female's weight has not been documented nor its plumage described, though the latter is thought to be similar to the male's but grayer on the underparts.Luther, D. (2021). Sapphire-bellied Hummingbird (''Chrysuronia lilliae''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.sabhum1.01.1 retrieved September 12, 2022

Distribution and habitat

The sapphire-bellied hummingbird is found only in the mangroves of

Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta The Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (Spanish for Large Marsh of Saint Martha) is the largest of the swampy marshes located in Colombia between the Magdalena River and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. It has an area of 4280 km2 and belongs to the ...

, a coastal wetland in northern Colombia, and in immediately adjoining arid scrublands.

Behavior

Movement

The sapphire-bellied hummingbird's movements, if any, have not been documented, though it might make local seasonal movements.

Feeding

The sapphire-bellied hummingbird's preferred nectar source is the flowers of tea mangrove (''Pelliciera rhizophorae''), though it has been observed feeding at the flowering legume ''

Erythrina fusca ''Erythrina fusca'' is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is known by many common names, including purple coraltree, gallito, bois immortelle, bucayo, and the more ambiguous "bucare" and "coral bean". ''E. fusca'' ...

'' in the nearby arid scrub. In addition to nectar, it feeds on insects.

Breeding

Nothing is known about the sapphire-bellied hummingbird's breeding

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

Vocalization

Xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and Information repository, repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of Bird vocalization, birdsong and bird calls. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound r ...

and Cornell University's

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal sounds. It includes more than 33 million photographs, 1.2 million audio recordings, and over two hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ever ...

have only a few recordings of the sapphire-bellied hummingbird's vocalizations. They are described as "a series of short chatters".

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

originally assessed the sapphire-bellied hummingbird as Critically Endangered but in 2021 downlisted it to Endangered. It has a very small area of suitable habitat which is undergoing continuing destruction. Its population is estimated at between 285 and 440 mature individuals and believed to be decreasing. Though it occurs in two protected areas, there are very few records at one of them, Vía Parque Isla de Salamanca.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q882410

sapphire-bellied hummingbird The sapphire-bellied hummingbird (''Chrysuronia lilliae'') is an Endangered species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is endemic to Colombia. Taxonomy and systematics The sapphire-bellied hummingb ...

Endemic birds of Colombia Critically endangered animals Critically endangered biota of South America

Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN