The new hummingbird species Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus is said to be in danger of extinction
Team leader Francisco Sornoza saw one of the birds through binoculars a year ago and had a hunch that it was a previously unknown species.
The bird is about 11 cm (four inches) long and has a stunning, deep blue neck, a white breast with a black stripe and greenish-blue head and body feathers.
It has been given the name Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus, or blue-throated star. The discovery was announced Thursday in a journal called The Auk: Ornithological Advances.
The bird lives at an altitude of 3,000 to 3,700 meters (10,000 to 12,000 feet) in an area near the Pacific coast that straddles the provinces of Loja and El Oro.
Researchers estimate there are only 300 of these birds and say its habitat is shrinking dramatically. Mining in the area also threatens it.
"It is a species that is in severe danger," Sornoza, who works at the National Biodiversity Institute, told AFP.
Ecuador is small but very rich in biodiversity. For instance, it is home to 132 species of hummingbird.
These birds are very well documented so the discovery of a new one is extremely rare. This is the first such find in 30 years, said Sornoza.
Also on the team with Sornoza were researchers Juan Freile of the Ecuadoran Committee of Ornithological Registries, Swede Jonas Nilsson of the bird observatory Wild Sumaco, Denmark's Niels Krabbe from the University of Copenhagen and Elisa Bonaccorso, a Venezuelan who teaches at San Francisco University in Quito.
Hummingbirds are distinguished by their colors and the shape of their beak.
"Each one represents the colors of the jewels you can see in the world: diamond, ruby, amethyst," said Sornoza, who has studied birds for 30 years and is so crazy about them he imitates bird song.
Hummingbirds are tough little creatures, he adds—their hearts beat 1,600 times per minute by day but that goes down to 200 at night to help them survive cold temperatures, said Sornoza.
The new species has a slightly curved beak that helps it get at the flowers of the chuquiragua, a plant that Ecuadoran highlanders use to brew tea.
It can eat up to two times its weight in nectar.
Reader Comments
They're a bit like my 5 grand kids...Nothing a healthy dose of doctor & pharma approved Ritalin can't fix eh...Those birds should really slow down...Sarc...!!!
(grandparents revenge,spoil them, send them home with the mayhem)
Do not extract revenge on own children by spoiling their children..
Grand children will not want to go home.
May also choose to visit too often.
Nice n witty convo n some poetic from S
Lysna THANK U, i always wondered myself, thanks for enlightening us. Lucky grandkiddos!!
The hummer is an epic journeyer; as it wasnt really outfitted to fly however succeeds an enormous feat. <3
In my youth, we had a location specific subspecies of 'Seaside Sparrow', called the "Dusky Seaside Sparrow." I used to watch them with my father who fought the destruction of one of their two nesting areas, a marsh in Merritt Island, which is now "Merritt Square Mall", i.e., he lost that fight (but managed to save Sebastian Inlet, Playalinda Beach and Mosqito Lagoon, so he had record that would never happen today.)
The DSS's tried to survive in the remaining St. John's River marshes West of here, but t'was too late. They've been extinct since around 1985, like my father.
So me saying I routinely saw DSS's, is similar to a person saying they saw a T-Rex - just a difference in a lot (very lot) of time. So how about a Dodo, instead?
R.C.
*Usually such 'Feel Good' MSM stories are, if about a theory or supposed conclusion regarding humanity, or society, they are based upon using rare anedotal events(i.e., the happier bell curve end of the unforeseeable side of life), then applied as if the events are applicable to the huge amount of typical events which make up >98% of such events; OR,
- are flat lies;..which in either event are meant to advance some ulterior agenda - e.g. NWO via Global Warming(oops!)/Global Cooling/Global Climate Stability, and the Taxes and government from above, rather than, as is proper, from the bottom up. See, e.g., Declaration of Independence. (Read it again; along with the Bill of Rights.)
RC