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Black-bellied Thorntail | Discosura langsdorffi
Zwartbuikdraadkolibrie | Colicerda ventrinegra | Rabo-de-espinho
The Black-bellied Thorntail is a very small hummingbird of the Amazonian lowlands, with a second, separate population in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. The male has a long, deeply forked tail with narrow feathers and a black belly. The species lives mainly high in the canopy and is therefore seen infrequently.
Voice
Mostly silent; when feeding a short tsip or chip. When hovering a bee-like hum of the wings.
Recording: GABRIEL LEITE — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
8–14 cm; the male is much longer than the female because of its long tail. Short, straight black bill. The male has a glittering grass green crown and throat, with a golden coppery band across the breast below, coppery green upperparts, a white band across the rump and otherwise black underparts with bronzy green flanks; the long, deeply forked tail has very narrow outer feathers. The female has a white throat with green and black spangles, a thin white cheek stripe, a spangled green breast, a black belly with a white flank patch, a white rump band and a short, slightly forked tail.
Confusion species
Wire-crested Thorntail Discosura popelairii has a long, hair-like crest and no coppery breast band in the male, and lives higher, in the foothills. Coquettes (Lophornis) also have a white rump band, but a short, rounded tail; females show rufous or buff on the head or throat.
Habitat
Humid lowland forest, both the canopy and edges and clearings, in Amazonia mainly terra firme forest and the transition to várzea; locally also in the lowest foothills. It feeds mainly high in flowering trees and sometimes comes lower at the forest edge. Little is known about its breeding biology.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia in the Amazonian lowlands of the south-east. In Ecuador in the lowlands east of the Andes. In Peru in the Amazonian lowlands of the east. In Bolivia only in the far north. Absent from the Galápagos. Outside the guide area in southern Venezuela and western Brazil, and with a separate subspecies in the coastal forest of eastern Brazil.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
From canopy towers at lodges in the Amazonian lowlands, at flowering trees. Birds sometimes perch on bare twigs in the crown.
Conservation status
Least Concern. The species is widespread but scarce and seldom reported; in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil its habitat is highly fragmented.
Scientific name
Discosura langsdorffi | (Temminck, 1821)
Temminck described the species in 1821 as Trochilus langsdorffi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Discosura was introduced in 1850 by Bonaparte. The genus name combines Greek diskos, 'disc' or 'plate', with oura, 'tail'. The species name honours Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1774–1852), a German naturalist and Russian consul-general in Brazil. The specimen the first description was based on came from Brazil.