Selasphorus
Female broad-tailed hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus) at nest
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Clade: Strisores
Order: Apodiformes
Family: Trochilidae
Subfamily: Trochilinae
Tribe: Mellisugini
Genus: Selasphorus
Swainson, 1832
Type species
Trochilus rufus
Gmelin, 1788
Species

See text

Synonyms[1]
  • Atthis Reichenbach, 1854
  • Stellula Gould, 1861

Selasphorus is a genus of hummingbirds from Middle and North America.

Taxonomy

The genus Selasphorus was introduced in 1832 by the English naturalist William John Swainson to accommodate the rufous hummingbird which is now the type species.[2][3] The name combines the Ancient Greek selas meaning "light" or "flame" with -phoros meaning "-carrying".[4]

The genus contains the following nine species:[5]

Image Name Common name Distribution
Selasphorus ardens Glow-throated hummingbird western Panama
Selasphorus calliope Calliope hummingbird California to British Columbia, and migrates to the Southwestern United States, Mexico
Selasphorus ellioti Wine-throated hummingbird El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.
Selasphorus flammula Volcano hummingbird Costa Rica and western Panama.
Selasphorus heloisa Bumblebee hummingbird Mexico
Selasphorus platycercus Broad-tailed hummingbird western United States and Western Canada to Mexico and Guatemala.
Selasphorus rufus Rufous hummingbird western United States and Mexican state of Guerrero
Selasphorus sasin Allen's hummingbird coastal California from Santa Barbara north, southern coastal Oregon, and southern central Mexico.
Selasphorus scintilla Scintillant hummingbird Costa Rica and Panama

The wine-throated hummingbird and the bumblebee hummingbird were formerly placed in the genus Atthis. Molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2014 and 2017 found that Atthis was embedded within Selasphorus. The genera were therefore merged and these hummingbirds were moved to Selasphorus.[5][6][7]

References

  1. ^ "Selasphorus Swainson, 1832". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  2. ^ Swainson, William John; Richardson, J. (1831). Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America. Vol. Part 2. The Birds. London: J. Murray. p. 324. The title page bears the year 1831 but the volume did not appear until 1832.
  3. ^ Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 141.
  4. ^ Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 352. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  5. ^ a b Gill, Frank; Donsker, David & Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (July 2020). "Hummingbirds". IOC World Bird List Version 10.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  6. ^ McGuire, J.; Witt, C.; Remsen, J.V.; Corl, A.; Rabosky, D.; Altshuler, D. & Dudley, R. (2014). "Molecular phylogenetics and the diversification of hummingbirds". Current Biology. 24 (8): 910–916. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.016. PMID 24704078.
  7. ^ Licona-Vera, Yuyini & Ornelas, Juan Francisco (2017). "The conquering of North America: dated phylogenetic and biogeographic inference of migratory behavior in bee hummingbirds". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 17 (1): 126. doi:10.1186/s12862-017-0980-5. PMC 5460336. PMID 28583078.

External links


Genera of nightjars, hummingbirds, swifts and their extinct allies
Taxon identifiers
Authority control databases: National
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