Tufted Coquette

About the Tufted Coquette

The tufted coquette (Lophornis ornatus) is a tiny hummingbird that breeds in eastern Venezuela, Trinidad, Guiana, and northern Brazil. It is an uncommon but widespread species, and appears to be a local or seasonal migrant, although its movements are not well understood.

This small bird inhabits open country, gardens, and cultivated areas. The tufted coquette was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1781 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Trochilus ornatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The type locality is Cayenne in French Guiana. The tufted coquette is now placed in the genus Lophornis that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1829. The species is monotypic. The generic name combines the Ancient Greek lophos meaning... Wikipedia →