The scintillant hummingbird (''Selasphorus scintilla'') is a
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 ...
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 els ...
to
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 ...
. This species is replaced at higher elevations by its relative, the
volcano hummingbird, ''S. flammula''.
Habitat
It inhabits brushy forest edges, coffee plantations and sometimes gardens at altitudes from , and up to when not breeding.
Description
It is only long, including the bill.
The male weighs and the female . This is one of the smallest birds in existence, marginally larger than the
bee hummingbird
The bee hummingbird, zunzuncito or Helena hummingbird (''Mellisuga helenae'') is a species of hummingbird, native to the island of Cuba in the Caribbean. It is the world's smallest bird.
Description
The bee hummingbird is the smallest living ...
.
The black bill is short and straight.
The adult male scintillant hummingbird has bronze-green upperparts and a rufous and black-striped tail. The throat is brilliant red, separated from the cinnamon underparts by a white neck band.
[ The female is similar, but her throat is buff with small green spots and the flanks are richer rufous. Young birds resemble the female but have rufous fringes to the upperpart plumage.][
]
Breeding
The female scintillant hummingbird is entirely responsible for nest building and incubation. She lays two white eggs in her tiny plant-floss cup nest high in a scrub. Incubation takes 15–19 days, and fledging another 20–26.
Diet
The food of ''S. scintilla'' is nectar, taken from a variety of small flowers, including ''Salvia
''Salvia'' () is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with nearly 1000 species of shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, ''Salvia'' is part of the tribe Mentheae withi