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White-bellied Mountaingem | Lampornis hemileucus
Witbuikjuweelkolibrie | Colibrí montañés vientriblanco
The White-bellied Mountaingem lives only in the mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, mainly on the Caribbean slope. It is the only mountaingem with bright white underparts; the male has a small violet throat. The species feeds in the lower and middle strata of humid montane forest and along forest edges.
Voice
A dry, sharp chik, sometimes in series.
Recording: Pritam Baruah — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
10–11 cm, with a straight black bill. The upperparts are glittering green, with a white stripe behind the eye and a dark ear patch. Both sexes have a white breast and belly with green spots on the flanks. The male has a small violet throat, the female a white throat. The tail is dark bronze-green, in the female with grey tips to the outer feathers.
Confusion species
The male Purple-throated Mountaingem Lampornis calolaemus also has a violet throat, but greyish-green underparts; the female has a cinnamon throat and underparts. The male White-throated Mountaingem Lampornis castaneoventris, in the higher mountains of the Talamanca, has a white throat and grey underparts.
Habitat
Humid foothill and montane rainforest and cloud forest, forest edges and clearings with flowering shrubs, mainly between about 750 and 2000 m. It feeds low to mid-level, often at flowering shrubs and epiphytes along edges and trails, and catches small insects. After the breeding season some birds move down to lower slopes.
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. In Costa Rica mainly on the Caribbean slope of the Cordillera de Tilarán, the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera de Talamanca, locally also on the Pacific slope; in western Panama in the mountains of Chiriquí, Bocas del Toro and the Ngäbe-Buglé comarca.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In Costa Rica on the Caribbean side of Monteverde, at Tapantí and on the slopes of Braulio Carrillo National Park; in Panama in the mountains around Fortuna. Often at flowering shrubs along forest edges and clearings.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Rather scarce and local. A large part of its small range lies within protected montane forests.
Scientific name
Lampornis hemileucus | (Salvin, 1865)
Salvin described the species in 1865 as Oreopyra hemileuca; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Lampornis was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Lampornis is Greek, from lampē 'torch, light' and ornis 'bird': 'light-bird', after the glittering throat. hemileucus is Greek, from hēmi- 'half' and leukos 'white', after the white underparts. The specimen the first description was based on came from Turrialba and Tucurrique, Costa Rica.