Selasphorus

Selasphorus
Female broad-tailed hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus) at nest
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Clade: Strisores
Order: Apodiformes
Family: Trochilidae
Subfamily: Trochilinae
Tribe: Mellisugini
Genus: Selasphorus
Swainson, 1832
Type species
Selasphorus rufus
Gmelin, 1788
Species

See text

Synonyms[1]
  • Atthis Reichenbach, 1854
  • Stellula Gould, 1861

Selasphorus is a genus of hummingbirds from Middle and North America.

Taxonomy

The genus Selasphorus was introduced in 1832 by the English naturalist William John Swainson to accommodate the rufous hummingbird which is now the type species.[2][3] The name combines the Ancient Greek selas meaning "light" or "flame" with -phoros meaning "-carrying".[4]

The genus contains the following nine species:[5]

Genus Selasphorus – Swainson, 1832 – nine species
Common name Scientific name and subspecies Range Size and ecology IUCN status and estimated population
Glow-throated hummingbird

Selasphorus ardens
Salvin, 1870 		western Panama
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 EN 


Calliope hummingbird


Male
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Female

Selasphorus calliope
(Gould, 1847) 		California to British Columbia, and migrates to the Southwestern United States, Mexico
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Wine-throated hummingbird

Selasphorus ellioti
(Ridgway, 1878)

Two subspecies
  • S. e. ellioti
  • S. e. selasphoroides
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Volcano hummingbird


Male
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Female

Selasphorus flammula
(Salvin, 1865)

Three subspecies
  • S. f. flammula
  • S. f. torridus
  • S. f. simoni
Costa Rica and western Panama.
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Bumblebee hummingbird


Male
{{{image-alt2}}}
Female

Selasphorus heloisa
(Lesson & Delattre, 1839)

Two subspecies
  • S. h. heloisa
  • S. h. margarethae
Mexico
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Broad-tailed hummingbird


Male
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Female

Selasphorus platycercus
(Swainson, 1827) 		western United States and Western Canada to Mexico and Guatemala.
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Rufous hummingbird


Male
{{{image-alt2}}}
Female

Selasphorus rufus
(Gmelin, JF, 1788) 		western United States and Mexican state of Guerrero
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 NT 


Allen's hummingbird


Male
{{{image-alt2}}}
Female

Selasphorus sasin
(Lesson, RP, 1829)

Two subspecies
  • S. s. sasin (Lesson, R, 1829)
  • S. s. sedentarius Grinnell, 1929
coastal California from Santa Barbara north, southern coastal Oregon, and southern central Mexico.
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 


Scintillant hummingbird


Male
{{{image-alt2}}}
Female

Selasphorus scintilla
(Gould, 1851) 		Costa Rica and Panama
Map of range 		Size:

Habitat:

Diet: 		 LC 



The wine-throated hummingbird and the bumblebee hummingbird were formerly placed in the genus Atthis. Molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2014 and 2017 found that Atthis was embedded within Selasphorus. The genera were therefore merged and these hummingbirds were moved to Selasphorus.[5][6][7]

References

  1. ^ "Selasphorus Swainson, 1832". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  2. ^ Swainson, William John; Richardson, J. (1831). Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America. Vol. Part 2. The Birds. London: J. Murray. p. 324. The title page bears the year 1831 but the volume did not appear until 1832.
  3. ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 141.
  4. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 352. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  5. ^ a b Gill, Frank; Donsker, David & Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2020). "Hummingbirds". IOC World Bird List Version 10.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  6. ^ McGuire, J.; Witt, C.; Remsen, J.V.; Corl, A.; Rabosky, D.; Altshuler, D. & Dudley, R. (2014). "Molecular phylogenetics and the diversification of hummingbirds". Current Biology. 24 (8): 910–916. Bibcode:2014CBio...24..910M. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.016. PMID 24704078.
  7. ^ Licona-Vera, Yuyini & Ornelas, Juan Francisco (2017). "The conquering of North America: dated phylogenetic and biogeographic inference of migratory behavior in bee hummingbirds". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 17 (1): 126. Bibcode:2017BMCEE..17..126L. doi:10.1186/s12862-017-0980-5. PMC 5460336. PMID 28583078.


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