- Turquoise-throated Puffleg
Taxobox
name = Turquoise-throated Puffleg
status = PE
status_system = IUCN3.1
regnum =Animal ia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Aves
ordo =Apodiformes
familia =Trochilidae
genus = "Eriocnemis "
species = "E. godini"
binomial = "Eriocnemis godini"
binomial_authority = (Bourcier,1851 )The Turquoise-throated Puffleg ("Eriocnemis godini"), also known as Godin's puffleg, is a presumed extincthummingbird .Description
This species had reached a length between 10 and 11 centimetres. The plumage of the males was colored predominantly green. They had a turquoise tinted throat. Both sexes had violet blue untertailcoverts and a straight black bill. The upperparts and the mainly part of the underparts were shimmering golden green at the males. Rump and uppertailcoverts were dyed bluish green. The throat was pale violet blue and the forked tail was bluish black. The females lacked the throat patches, its plumage was less light and the belly was more golden. Like all puff-legs it had strikingly leg-puffs of dense white downy feather tufts.
Taxonomical debate
The Turquoise-thoated puffleg is currently a subject of a taxomomical debate according its status. Graves (1996) assumed that it could be a hybrid between "E. vestita" and an undetermined
Eriocnemis species while Ridgely (2001) suggested to see it as subspecies of theGlowing Puffleg . [ [http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~remsen/SACCBaseline04.html SACC Classification of Birds] ] [Graves, G.R. 1996. Diagnoses of hybrid hummingbirds (Aves: Trochilidae). 2. Hybrid origin of Eriocnemis soderstromi Butler. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 109:764-769.] [RIDGELY, R. S. 2001. Journal für Ornithologie 142, 2001. Fig. 2. Distribution of Eriocnemis vestitus and E. nigrivestis, based on examined skins and literature data ]Distribution
The Turquoise-throated puffleg occurred in
Ecuador at theGuayllabamba River south ofPerucho in thePichincha Province in the far north of the country. Two further specimens are presumedly fromPasto in the south of theNariño Department inColombia .Extinction
This hummingbird is only known by six specimens which were collected in the 19th century. Only the type specimen from 1850 is from a known locality in the Chillo valley,
Guayllabamba plains in an altitude between 2,100 and 2,300 m asl. Two skins were purchased inBogotá .The species became extinct because of the destruction of its scrubland habitat in the type locality. Only a few remnants are left in the steep-sided stream-cuts in the arid upper Guaillabamba drainage.
After an unconfirmed sighting in 1976 there was a survey in 1980. Despite extensive searches the survey had failed and this species remains lost.
References
External links
* [http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=2035&m=0 BirdLife factsheet - Turquoise-throated Puffleg]
* [http://www.oldprintshop.com/images/large/28676.jpgPrint by John Gould]
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