Animalia Life

Florisuga mellivora
SUBFAMILY
Trochilinae
TAXONOMY
Trochilus mellivorus Linnaeus, 1758, India; error=Surinam. Two subspecies recognized.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
English: White-bellied hummingbird; French: Colibri jacobin; German: Weissnackenkolibri; Spanish: Colibrн Nuquiblanco.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
4.3–4.7 in (11–12 cm); female 0.23 oz (6.5 g), male 0.26 oz (7.4 g). Bill and feet black. Adult male with head and chest blue, broad white crescent on nape, rest of upperparts bright green including elongated uppertail-coverts; belly and most of tail white, narrowly edged and tipped black. Plumage of adult female notoriously variable, apparently individually; half to twothirds show the typical female plumage with blue-green breast heavily scaled with whitish, belly dull white, upperparts entirely green and tail mostly green with dark blue tip, outer rectrix with white outer edge and tip; the remainder have plumage more or less male-like with a few only distinguishable from adult male by their longer bills and shorter wings and tails.
DISTRIBUTION
F. m. mellivora: southern Mexico to Panama and Colombia, south to west Ecuador, southeast Peru and northern Bolivia, and east to Venezuela, Trinidad, the Guianas and Amazonian Brazil. F. m. flabellifera: Tobago.
HABITAT
Humid forest canopy and borders, woodlands, plantations, tall second growth, and gallery forest. Usually high in trees, lower at edges and clearings. Occurs from sea-level up to 3,300 ft (1,000 m).
BEHAVIOR
Territorial. Mostly silent, at times lengthy hard utters. Sometimes 12–15 males gather at flowering trees.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Feeds high in flowering trees, including Inga, Vochysia, Erythrina, Bauhinia, and Symphonia, epiphytes, shrubs, and Heliconia along edges and in clearings. Hawks for insects for long periods, hovering and darting high above streams and clearings or sallying from tree-top perches.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Breeds during dry to early wet seasons between January and July in Costa Rica and Panama; between February and May in northwest Colombia, June and November in east Colombia. Nest is a rather shallow soft cup of light-colored plant down and cobweb on flat upper surface of broad leaf of understory palm (Geonoma, Asterogyne), often sheltered from above by another such leaf, 3.3–10 ft (1–3 m) above ground, sometimes near a stream.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Uncommon to common. Adapts to human-made habitats such as tree plantations.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.

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