The scintillant hummingbird (''Selasphorus scintilla'') is a

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 ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to Costa Rica and Panama. 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 smallest known bird. The bee hummingbird feeds on nectar of flowers and bugs foun ...

. 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 Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by Plant, plants in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollination, pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to an ...

, taken from a variety of small flowers, including ''

Salvia ''Salvia'' () is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with just under 1,000 species of shrubs, Herbaceous plant, herbaceous Perennial plant, perennials, and Annual plant, annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, ''Salvia'' is part o ...

'' and species normally pollinated by

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s. Like other hummingbirds it also takes some small insects as an essential source of protein. In the breeding season, scintillant hummingbird males perch conspicuously in open areas with ''Salvia'' and defend their feeding territories aggressively with diving displays. The call is a liquid ''tsip''.

References

Works cited

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1269631 scintillant hummingbird Endemic birds of the Talamancan montane forests Hummingbird species of Central America scintillant hummingbird Taxa named by John Gould