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Black-throated Mango | Anthracothorax nigricollis
Zwartkeelmango | Mango gorjinegro
The Black-throated Mango is a large hummingbird of the South American lowlands that is common in Trinidad and Tobago. It favours open areas and flowering trees and catches many insects in long sallies from a high, bare branch. The juvenile plumage differs strongly from that of adults.
Voice
Fairly quiet. Calls are a short tsick and a deeper tchuk. The male's song is a repeated, hissing tsl-tsl-tsl-tsl.
Recording: Jonas Nilsson — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a curved black bill. The male is glossy bronze-green above; a broad velvety black central stripe runs from the chin over throat and breast onto the belly, bordered on each side by glittering blue-green. The tail is purplish red with a violet sheen and dark tips. The female is green above and white below, with a narrow black central stripe from throat to belly; the outer tail feathers are rufous with a dark band and white tips. Juveniles resemble the female but have rusty fringes along the stripe and on head and back.
Confusion species
Green-throated Mango Anthracothorax viridigula, rare in Trinidad, has a glittering green throat in the male, with a black central stripe only on breast and belly; females of the two species are very similar and often cannot be separated with certainty in the field. White-necked Jacobin Florisuga mellivora has a straight bill, a dark blue head and a white tail. Brown Violetear Colibri delphinae is plain brown with a short straight bill.
Habitat
Open and semi-open country with tall trees: forest edges, gallery forest, shaded cacao and coffee plantations, savanna with scattered trees, parks and gardens, mainly in the lowlands. Feeds at flowering trees, often high in the crown, and hawks flying insects from a high perch.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Common resident in Trinidad and Tobago. The few records from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic in the GBIF data are unconfirmed and probably misidentifications. Outside the region from Panama across almost all of tropical South America east of the Andes, south to Paraguay and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Trinidad in gardens, along forest edges and at feeders, including at the Asa Wright Nature Centre; in Tobago in gardens and at flowering trees in the lowlands. Males often sit for long periods on the same high, bare branch, sallying out from it again and again.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread and common and tolerates heavily modified land.
Scientific name
Anthracothorax nigricollis | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Trochilus nigricollis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Anthracothorax was introduced in 1831 by Boie. Anthracothorax is Greek, from anthrax 'coal' (i.e. 'black') and thōrax 'chest', after the black central stripe on breast and belly. nigricollis is Latin, from niger 'black' and collum 'neck', after the black throat and breast stripe. The specimen the first description was based on came from Brazil.