Green-tailed Trainbearer

About the Green-tailed Trainbearer

The green-tailed trainbearer (Lesbia nuna) is a species of hummingbird in the "coquettes", tribe Lesbiini of subfamily Lesbiinae. It is found in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and possibly Venezuela. The taxonomy of the green-tailed trainbearer is not settled. The International Ornithological Committee (IOC) recognizes these six subspecies:

L. n. gouldii Loddiges (1832) L. n. gracilis Gould (1846) L. n. aureliae Weller & Schuchmann (2004) L. n. pallidiventris Simon (1902) L. n. huallagae Weller & Schuchmann (2004) L. n. nuna Lesson (1832) The Clements taxonomy and BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) recognize a seventh, L. n. boliviana (Boucard, 1892) that the IOC treats as a synonym of the nominate subspecies.

Though the green-tailed trainbearer shares its genus with the black-tailed trainbearer (L. victoriae), they might not be especially closely related. All of the subspecies except the nominate (and boliviana) have at various times been suggested as separate species. Two additional subspecies have been proposed as well, but the weight of evidence is that they are hybrids of the two trainbearers.

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