Agami Heron

About the Agami Heron

The agami heron (Agamia agami) is a medium-sized heron. It is a resident breeding bird from Central America south to Peru and Brazil. It is sometimes known as the chestnut-bellied heron, and is the only member of the genus Agamia. In Brazil it is sometimes called Soco beija-flor, meaning 'hummingbird heron', thanks to its unique coloration pattern.

The agami heron is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN, due to predictions of future habitat destruction within its range. The agami heron was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons and cranes in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea agami. Gmelin based his description on the "Agami heron" from Cayenne that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had in turn based his description on a specimen owned by the army officer Thamas Davies and the description and illustration of "Le Héron Agami" by the French polymath Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The agami heron is now the only species... Wikipedia →