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Ruby-topaz Hummingbird | Chrysolampis mosquitus
Muskietkolibrie | Colibrí rubí-topacio
The Ruby-topaz Hummingbird is a hummingbird of dry, open country in South America that reaches the guide area only in eastern Panama. There it is scarce and irregular, and the number of records varies greatly from year to year. With every turn of the head the male looks different: the crown changes from ruby-red to almost black, the throat from golden-orange to dark brown.
Voice
Rather quiet. A high, dry tsip or tsik, sometimes in short series; in chases a fine, rapid squeaking.
Recording: Jacob Wijpkema — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
8–9 cm, with a short, slightly decurved black bill. The male has a metallic ruby-red crown and nape, a glittering golden-orange to golden-yellow throat and breast, otherwise dark olive-brown upperparts and a dark brown belly. The tail is bright chestnut with a narrow dark terminal edge. The female is grey-green above and pale grey below, often with a dark central stripe on the throat; the tail is chestnut with a dark band and white tips to the outer feathers. Young males already show some gold on the throat.
Confusion species
In eastern Panama no other hummingbird combines a red crown, a golden-orange throat and a chestnut tail. Females resemble female mangos, such as Black-throated Mango Anthracothorax nigricollis, but these are larger, with a longer, more strongly decurved bill and a dark central stripe along the entire underparts. Female Rufous-tailed Hummingbird Amazilia tzacatl has a red bill with a black tip, a green throat and breast and a uniformly rufous tail without white tips.
Habitat
Dry and semi-open country: savanna with bushes and scattered trees, scrub, forest edges, pastures with trees, gardens and village edges in the lowlands. It visits flowering shrubs and trees, often low down, and catches small insects in the air. In Panama mainly in open, drier terrain along rivers and near settlements.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area only in eastern Panama, almost exclusively in the lowlands of Darién, with a few reports from Panamá province. There are no known recent records from Costa Rica. Outside the guide area in northern and eastern South America: Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, the Guianas and much of Brazil to Bolivia and northern Argentina.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the dry season, from December to March, there is a chance of birds at flowering trees and shrubs in open terrain in the Darién lowlands. Males are easiest to identify when the sun falls on head and throat; in shade they look almost black.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The world population is large. Scarce and local in the guide area; the species occurs in farmland and secondary growth and appears to suffer little from deforestation.
Scientific name
Chrysolampis mosquitus | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Trochilus Mosquitus; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Chrysolampis was introduced in 1831 by Boie. Chrysolampis is Greek, from khrusos 'gold' and lampis 'lamp, torch', after the fiery glittering throat and crown. mosquitus is a Latinized form of Spanish mosquito 'little fly', after the bird's tiny size. The specimen the first description was based on came from Suriname (substituted for the erroneous 'Indies').