Geographic Range
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).
Habitat
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).
- Habitat Regions
- tropical
- terrestrial
- Terrestrial Biomes
- forest
- Other Habitat Features
- urban
- agricultural
Physical Description
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).
- Other Physical Features
- endothermic
- bilateral symmetry
Reproduction
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).
- Key Reproductive Features
- iteroparous
- gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
- sexual
- fertilization
- oviparous
Lifespan/Longevity
No information, probably similar to other hummingbirds.
Behavior
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).
- Key Behaviors
- flies
- motile
- sedentary
- territorial
Communication and Perception
Food Habits
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.
- Primary Diet
- herbivore
- Plant Foods
- nectar
Predation
These hummingbirds are probably subject to common nest predators such as snakes.
Ecosystem Roles
It is not known for this species in particular, but like other hummingbirds, they probably pollinate the flowers they visit while drinking nectar.
- Ecosystem Impact
- pollinates
Conservation Status
Additional Links
Contributors
Michael Vince (author), University of Arizona, Todd McWhorter (editor), University of Arizona.
- tropical
-
the region of the earth that surrounds the equator, from 23.5 degrees north to 23.5 degrees south.
- terrestrial
-
Living on the ground.
- forest
-
forest biomes are dominated by trees, otherwise forest biomes can vary widely in amount of precipitation and seasonality.
- urban
-
living in cities and large towns, landscapes dominated by human structures and activity.
- agricultural
-
living in landscapes dominated by human agriculture.
- endothermic
-
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.
- bilateral symmetry
-
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.
- iteroparous
-
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).
- sexual
-
reproduction that includes combining the genetic contribution of two individuals, a male and a female
- fertilization
-
union of egg and spermatozoan
- internal fertilization
-
fertilization takes place within the female's body
- oviparous
-
reproduction in which eggs are released by the female; development of offspring occurs outside the mother's body.
- motile
-
having the capacity to move from one place to another.
- sedentary
-
remains in the same area
- territorial
-
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
- herbivore
-
An animal that eats mainly plants or parts of plants.
- nectarivore
-
an animal that mainly eats nectar from flowers
- visual
-
uses sight to communicate
- tactile
-
uses touch to communicate
- acoustic
-
uses sound to communicate
- chemical
-
uses smells or other chemicals to communicate
References
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.