Order
Caprimulgiformes
Family
Trochilidae
Genus
Heliomaster
 
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Version 1.0

This is a historic version of this account.  Current version

SPECIES

Plain-capped Starthroat Heliomaster constantii

Marîa del Coro Arizmendi, Claudia I. Rodríguez-Flores, Carlos A. Soberanes-González, and Thomas S. Schulenberg
Version: 1.0 — Published January 3, 2014

Systematics

Geographic Variation

Three subspecies recognized:

pinicola, described as Heliomaster pinicola by Gould (1853); type locality northern Mexico

Occurs in northwestern Mexico, south to Jalisco.

Subspecies pinicola is similar to nominate constantii, but is paler on the underparts, with the red of the gorget less extensive (Stiles 1999).

leocodiae, described as Trochilus leocadiae (Bourcier and Mulsant 1852). Type locality Mexico, restricted to Acapulco, Guerrero by van Rossem 1934

Occurs from southwestern Mexico south to western Guatemala.

Subspecies leocadiae has a pinker gorget than pinicola; the underparts are intermdiate, darker than those of pinicola but paler than in nominate constantii (Stiles 1999).

constantii, described as Ornismya constantii (Delattre 1843). Type locality Guatemala, but this considered an error, and Bolson, Costa Rica substituted by Griscom (1932: 210).

Occurs in El Salvador (where intergrades with leocadiae; Dickey and van Rossem 1938), Honduras (where "show[s] some tendency of intermediacy towards leocadiae": Monroe 1968), Nicaragua, and northwestern Costa Rica.

See Detailed Description.

Subspecies

Related Species

Phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequence data reveals that hummingbirds (Trochilidae) constitute nine major clades, comprising the hermits, mangos, Patagona, topazes, coquettes, brilliants, mountain-gems, bees, and emeralds (McGuire et al. 2007, 2009); Heliomaster belongs to the mountain-gem clade. Other genera documented as belonging to the mountain-gem clade are Eugenes, Panterpe, and Lampornis (McGuire et al. 2007, 2009); additional genera that may belong to this clade are Hylonympha, Sternoclyta, and Lamprolaima (McGuire 2009). The sister genus to Heliomaster is Panterpe (McGuire et al. 2007, 2009).

Recommended Citation

Arizmendi, M. d. C., C. I. Rodríguez-Flores, C. A. Soberanes-González, and T. S. Schulenberg (2014). Plain-capped Starthroat (Heliomaster constantii), version 1.0. In Neotropical Birds Online (T. S. Schulenberg, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/nb.plcsta.01