The Steely-Vented Hummingbird, Amazilia saucerrottei, has a range from western Nicaragua to Costa Rica, Columbia and northwest Venezuela. It is a common resident of the north half of the Pacific slope and extends east to the Rio Frio region on the Caribbean slope in Costa Rica (Stiles and Skutch, 1989).
A. saucerrottei prefers secondary growth and scrubby savanna with scattered trees, coffee plantations, and gardens. It is found regularly at openings and edges of evergreen gallery forest, especially during the dry season. It resides in lowlands and up mountain slopes to about 1800 meters (Stiles and Skutch, 1989).
A. saucerrottei is 9 cm long and weighs 4.5 grams. It is all green with a bronzy rump and notched steel blue-black tail. The male has shading to bronze on wing-coverts and lower back, a purplish-bronze rump and upper tail-coverts, and the tail is dark steel blue to blue black. The bottom of the bird is entirely dark metallic green, with white thigh-tufts and a blue crissum (Stiles, 1989). The female's lower breast and belly is a duller green. The crissum feathers are edged with gray and the outer rectrices are purplish at the tips. The upper mandible is black and the lower a rose pink with black tip. The lower mandible is dusky with a reddish tip (Ridgely, 1989). The feet are black. The juvenile's underside is a dull, dark bronze-green (Stiles and Skutch, 1989).
A. saucerrottei builds a cup nest of compact pale-colored plants, down, and cobwebs, which is usually heavily decorated on the outside with lichens. The nest is usually placed on an outer twig of a small tree 2 to 7 meters above the ground (Stiles and Skutch, 1989).
No information, probably similar to other hummingbirds.
A. saucerrottei are aggressive medium sized hummingbirds (Tiebout, 1992). Both sexes are aggressive and often territorial at flowers (Stiles and Skutch, 1989). The bird is very territorial and often changes its aggressiveness throughout the day. It is more defensive during the morning and becomes slightly less aggressive in the afternoon (Tiebout, 1992).
A. saucerrottei visits many kinds of flowers for nectar. It likes the flowers of trees (Inga, Pithecellobium, Tabebuia, Genipa), shrubs (Hamelia, Stachytarpheta), vines, epiphytes and herbs (Lobelia). Both sexes are aggressive at flowers (Stiles and Skutch, 1989).Probably also consumes insects like other hummingbirds, but no specific information available.
These hummingbirds are probably subject to common nest predators such as snakes.
It is not known for this species in particular, but like other hummingbirds, they probably pollinate the flowers they visit while drinking nectar.
Michael Vince (author), University of Arizona, Todd McWhorter (editor), University of Arizona.
uses sound to communicate
living in landscapes dominated by human agriculture.
having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.
uses smells or other chemicals to communicate
animals that use metabolically generated heat to regulate body temperature independently of ambient temperature. Endothermy is a synapomorphy of the Mammalia, although it may have arisen in a (now extinct) synapsid ancestor; the fossil record does not distinguish these possibilities. Convergent in birds.
union of egg and spermatozoan
forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.
An animal that eats mainly plants or parts of plants.
fertilization takes place within the female's body
offspring are produced in more than one group (litters, clutches, etc.) and across multiple seasons (or other periods hospitable to reproduction). Iteroparous animals must, by definition, survive over multiple seasons (or periodic condition changes).
having the capacity to move from one place to another.
an animal that mainly eats nectar from flowers
reproduction in which eggs are released by the female; development of offspring occurs outside the mother's body.
remains in the same area
reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female
uses touch to communicate
Living on the ground.
defends an area within the home range, occupied by a single animals or group of animals of the same species and held through overt defense, display, or advertisement
the region of the earth that surrounds the equator, from 23.5 degrees north to 23.5 degrees south.
living in cities and large towns, landscapes dominated by human structures and activity.
uses sight to communicate
Ridgely, R., J. Gwynne. 1989. A Guide to the Birds of Panama. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Stiles, F., A. Skutch. 1989. A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica. Ithaca, New York: Comstock Publishing Associates.
Tiebout, H. 1992. Comparative energetics of divergent foraging modes: a doubly labelled water experiment on hummingbird competition. Animal Behaviour, 44: 895-906.