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Purple-throated Carib | Eulampis jugularis
Granaatkolibrie | Colibrí caribeño gorjimorado
The Purple-throated Carib is a large, dark hummingbird of the montane forests of the Lesser Antilles, and the only species with a garnet throat on an almost black body. With the Green-throated Carib it forms the genus Eulampis, confined to the Lesser Antilles and the Virgin Islands. It is a well-studied case of hummingbird–flower matching: the female's bill fits the curved flowers of Heliconia, the male's straighter blooms.
Voice
A sharp, forceful chewp or tsip, repeated rapidly when agitated. Chases and confrontations bring rattling series; males are strongly territorial at flowering trees and feeders.
Recording: Jack Baddams — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a curved black bill; the female's is noticeably longer and more strongly curved than the male's. Body velvety black with a blue or purple sheen in good light. Throat and breast garnet to purplish red, glittering in direct light. The wing coverts are bright metallic green and form a green panel against the black body at rest. Tail blue-black. Sexes otherwise alike; juveniles have a duller throat with rufous fringes.
Confusion species
Green-throated Carib Eulampis holosericeus shares the shape and curved bill, but throat and breast are glittering green with a blue breast patch, and the upperparts are green rather than black. In poor light both look dark; the green wing panel and red throat are then the best marks. Antillean Crested Hummingbird Orthorhyncus cristatus is much smaller with a short straight bill. Blue-headed Hummingbird Riccordia bicolor of Dominica and Martinique is smaller, straight-billed and green-bodied.
Habitat
The interior and edges of rainforest and cloud forest, mainly between about 800 and 1,200 m, but on some islands, such as Dominica and Sint Eustatius, also lower in moist secondary forest and banana and fruit plantations. Outside the breeding season it moves downslope and then enters gardens. Feeds mainly at Heliconia and flowering trees, and also takes insects in flight.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident on Saba, Sint Eustatius, St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia and St Vincent; scarce on Antigua. Recorded only as a rare visitor or vagrant on Grenada, Barbados, Barbuda, St Martin and Puerto Rico. Does not occur outside the Lesser Antilles.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Found at feeders and flowering Heliconia along the edges of the montane forests of Dominica, St Lucia and Guadeloupe. A bird fiercely guarding a flower or feeder and showing a red throat and green wings in the sun is almost certainly this species.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is common in montane forest on most islands. Hurricanes can sharply reduce flowering and therefore numbers for a time; loss of montane forest is the main long-term threat.
Scientific name
Eulampis jugularis | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Trochilus jugularis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Eulampis was introduced in 1831 by Boie. Eulampis is Greek, from eu 'fine, good' and lampis 'lamp, torch': 'finely shining', after the glittering plumage. jugularis is Latin for 'of the throat' (jugulum), after the garnet-red throat. The specimen the first description was based on came from Lesser Antilles (originally given in error as Cayenne and Suriname).