Helmeted pygmy tyrant | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Passeriformes |
Family: | Tyrannidae |
Genus: | Lophotriccus |
Species: | L. galeatus
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Binomial name | |
Lophotriccus galeatus (Boddaert, 1783)
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The helmeted pygmy tyrant (Lophotriccus galeatus) is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae.[2] It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and heavily degraded former forest.[3]
The helmeted pygmy tyrant was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a sample collected in Cayenne, French Guiana.[4] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.[5] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Montacilla galeata in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.[6] The helmeted pygmy tyrant is now placed in the genus Lophotriccus that was introduced by the German ornithologist Hans von Berlepsch in 1883.[7] The species is monotypic.[8] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek lophos meaning "crest" with trikkos which is an unidentified small bird. In ornithology triccus is used to denote a tyrant flycatcher. The specific name galeatus is Latin for "helmeted".[9]