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Glow-throated Hummingbird | Selasphorus ardens
Gloeikeelkolibrie | Colibrí ardiente
The Glow-throated Hummingbird occurs only in a small area in the mountains of western Panama. It is closely related to the Scintillant Hummingbird and looks very much like it. There are few records, and the species is poorly known.
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Voice
A high, thin tsip, and in chases a thin twitter; the wings of the male produce a buzzing sound. Little is known about its voice.
Recording: Pedro Luis Castillo — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
About 7 cm, with a short, straight black bill. The upperparts are bronze-green. The male has a glittering rose-red to magenta throat, a white band across the upper breast, rufous flanks and belly, and a rufous tail with black stripes. The female has a pale, spotted throat, rufous underparts and a rufous tail with a black band and pale tips.
Confusion species
Scintillant Hummingbird Selasphorus scintilla is almost identical, but the male has an orange-red to coppery-red throat; females are hardly separable in the field. Volcano Hummingbird Selasphorus flammula lives higher and has less rufous on the underparts; the male has a dark tail.
Habitat
Forest edges, clearings and scrub in cloud forest and elfin forest on ridges, and semi-open terrain with flowering shrubs, at about 750 to 1800 m. It feeds low down at small flowers.
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, and known only from western Panama: the mountains of northern Veraguas, eastern Chiriquí and the adjacent Ngäbe-Buglé comarca, including Cerro Colorado and the area around Santa Fe.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Around Santa Fe in Veraguas, along the road to Alto de Piedra and Cerro Tute, at flowering shrubs on forest edges and in clearings. Most records are from the dry season, December to April.
Conservation status
Endangered. The range is very small and fragmented, and the forest within it is being cleared for farming and cattle. Mining is an additional local threat.
Scientific name
Selasphorus ardens | Salvin, 1870
Salvin described the species in 1870 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Selasphorus was introduced in 1832 by Swainson. Selasphorus is Greek, from selas 'light, flame' and -phoros 'bearing': 'light-bearer', after the fiery, glittering throat. ardens is Latin for 'burning, glowing', after the male's fiery gorget. The specimen the first description was based on came from Calovévora and Castillo, Veraguas, Panama.