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Canivet's Emerald | Cynanthus canivetii
Vorkstaartsmaragdkolibrie | Esmeralda de Canivet
Canivet's Emerald is a small green hummingbird of open and semi-open country, from eastern Mexico to north-west Costa Rica. It was split from a larger species complex that also included Cozumel Emerald and Turquoise-crowned Hummingbird. In dry scrub, forest edges and gardens it is often common.
Voice
A dry, rattling chit or chrr, often in a fast, scratchy series during chases.
Recording: Paul Driver — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
8–9 cm, with a straight red bill with a black tip. The male is entirely glittering green, with a blue-black forked tail. The female has green upperparts, a white stripe behind the eye, a dark ear patch, pale grey underparts and a forked dark tail with greyish-white tips to the outer feathers.
Confusion species
Cozumel Emerald Cynanthus forficatus occurs only on Cozumel and has a longer tail. Golden-crowned Emerald Cynanthus auriceps of western Mexico has a longer, more deeply forked tail. Garden Emerald Chlorostilbon assimilis of Costa Rica and Panama is smaller, the male has a black bill and a less deeply forked tail. Broad-billed Hummingbird Cynanthus latirostris and Turquoise-crowned Hummingbird Cynanthus doubledayi are larger and have a blue throat. Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris has a black bill and no dark ear patch.
Habitat
Dry and semi-deciduous forest, thorn scrub, forest edges, savanna with shrubs, wooded pasture, plantations and gardens, from sea level to about 1800 m, mostly in the lowlands. It feeds low at flowers and catches small insects.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Endemic to the guide area. On the Atlantic slope from southern Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí through Veracruz to the Yucatán Peninsula with the islands off its north coast, Belize, northern Guatemala and Honduras; also in the interior valleys and on the Pacific slope from Chiapas through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to north-west Costa Rica. Only rare in Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In gardens and scrub on the Yucatán Peninsula, for example around Celestún, Mérida and Calakmul; in Belize around Crooked Tree; in Costa Rica in Guanacaste. Often at low flowering shrubs along roads and forest edges.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Common to fairly common in a large range and tolerant of man-made landscapes.
Scientific name
Cynanthus canivetii | (Lesson, 1832)
Lesson described the species in 1832 as Ornismya canivetii; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Cynanthus was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Cynanthus is Greek, from kuanos 'dark blue' and anthos 'blossom, flower', after the glittering blue plumage. canivetii honours the French naturalist and collector Emmanuel Canivet de Carentan, from whose collection the type specimen came. The specimen the first description was based on came from Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico.