Blue-throated hummingbird
| Blue-throated mountaingem | |
|---|---|
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| Male | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Apodiformes |
| Family: | Trochilidae |
| Genus: | Lampornis |
| Species: | L. clemenciae |
| Binomial name | |
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Lampornis clemenciae (Lesson, 1829) |
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The blue-throated mountaingem, also known as the blue-throated mountain-gem or blue-throated hummingbird (Lampornis clemenciae) is a species of hummingbird, a member of the family Trochilidae of birds.
The Blue-throated mountaingem is a fairly large hummingbird, reaching 11.5 to 12.5 cm (4.5 to 4.9 in) in length and 6 to 10 grams in weight. The Blue-throated Hummingbird is dull green on the top of its body, fading to medium gray on its belly. It has a conspicuous white stripe behind its eye and a narrower stripe extending backward from the corner of its bill, bordering a blackish cheek patch. Its tail feathers are iridescent blue-black with broad white tips on the outer two to three pairs. The species gets its name from the adult male's iridescent blue throat patch (gorget), but the female lacks this, having a plain gray throat.
The blue-throated mountaingem is native to mountain woodlands of Mexico, although during the summer it is an uncommon to rare resident of moist, wooded canyons in the Madrean sky islands of southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and western Texas in the United States and northeastern Sonora, Mexico. A few individuals traditionally winter at feeding stations in southeastern Arizona.
Males sing two types of songs: a simple "peep song," which sounds like a squeaky wheel lasting about 1 second, and a quiet but complex "whisper song" lasting as long as 8 seconds. The female is also reported to sing during the breeding season to attract the attention of males. A male song differs in several respects from other oscine birds in that it uses sharp atonal forceful trills and clicks, and has an unusually large vocal range of 1.8 to 30 kHz.
The bird also uses ultrasonic vibrations which are not for communication, but possibly serve to flush out and disorient its insect prey.
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Wikipedia