Butterfly Coquette

About the Butterfly Coquette

The butterfly coquette (Lophornis verreauxii) is a species of hummingbird in the "coquettes", tribe Lesbiini of subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. The butterfly coquette was formerly treated as a subspecies of the festive coquette (Lophornis chalybeus), and that species and the peacock coquette (L. pavoninus) were also for a time placed in genus Polemistria. In 2019 the South American Classification Committee (SACC) of the American Ornithological Society accepted the festive coquette as a separate species. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) adopted the split in 2020. The Clements taxonomy did not make updates in 2020 and adopted the split in 2021.

The butterfly coquette has two subspecies, the nominate L. v. verreauxii and L. v. klagesi. The butterfly coquette is 7.5 to 9.1 cm (3.0 to 3.6 in) long. The male of the nominate subspecies has a deep green head with a long, red-tipped, green crest and long green "whiskers" with white tips. Its back is green with golden highlights, deep reddish uppertail... Wikipedia →