Helmeted Pygmy-Tyrant

About the Helmeted Pygmy-Tyrant

The helmeted pygmy tyrant (Lophotriccus galeatus) is a species of bird in the family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. The helmeted pygmy tyrant was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a sample collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-colored 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 Montacilla galeata in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

In the mid-twentieth century some authors placed the helmeted pygmy tyrant by itself in genus Colopteryx; that genus was soon merged into Lophotriccus. Several authors have suggested that genus Lophotriccus should be merged into genus Hemitriccus. Genus Lophotriccus had been introduced by the German ornithologist... Wikipedia →