Chaetocercus

Chaetocercus is a genus of hummingbirds in the family Trochilidae.

Chaetocercus
Female gorgeted woodstar (Chaetocercus heliodor)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Clade:	Strisores
Order:	Apodiformes
Family:	Trochilidae
Tribe:	Mellisugini
Genus:	Chaetocercus G.R. Gray, 1855
Type species
Ornismya jourdanii (rufous-shafted woodstar) Bourcier, 1839
Synonyms
Acestrura Gould, 1861

Taxonomy

The genus Chaetocercus was introduced in 1855 by the English zoologist George Robert Gray with the rufous-shafted woodstar as the type species.^[1][2] The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek words khaitē, meaning "hair" and kerkos, meaning "tail".^[3]

The genus contains six species:^[4]

Genus Chaetocercus – G.R. Gray, 1855 – six species

Common name	Scientific name and subspecies	Range	Size and ecology	IUCN status and estimated population
White-bellied woodstar Male Female	Chaetocercus mulsant (Bourcier, 1843)	Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Little woodstar Male Female	Chaetocercus bombus Gould, 1871	Colombia, Ecuador and Peru	Size: Habitat: Diet:	NT
Gorgeted woodstar Male Female	Chaetocercus heliodor (Bourcier, 1840) Two subspecies C. h. heliodor C. h. cleavesi	Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Santa Marta woodstar Male Female	Chaetocercus astreans (Bangs, 1899)	Colombia	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC
Esmeraldas woodstar	Chaetocercus berlepschi (Simon, 1889)	Ecuador	Size: Habitat: Diet:	VU
Rufous-shafted woodstar	Chaetocercus jourdanii (Bourcier, 1839) Three subspecies C. j. andinus Phelps, WH & Phelps, WH Jr, 1949 C. j. rosae (Bourcier & Mulsant, 1846) C. j. jourdanii (Bourcier, 1839)	Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.	Size: Habitat: Diet:	LC

All these species, except for the rufous-shafted woodstar, were formerly placed in the genus Acestrura.^[5] In 1999 Karl-Ludwig Schuchmann remarked in the Handbook of the Birds of the World that for the species placed in Acestrura: "...no evidence in external morphology justifies treatment in a genus separate from C. jourdanii".^[6]

References

1. Gray, George Robert (1855). Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds Contained in the British Museum. London: British Museum. p. 22.
2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 140.
3. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 98. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
4. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (August 2022). "Hummingbirds". IOC World Bird List Version 12.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
5. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-List of Birds of the World. Vol. 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 139.
6. Schuchmann, K.L. (1999). "Genus Chaetocercus". In del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 5: Barn-owls to Hummingbirds. Barcelona, Spain: Lynx Edicions. p. 677. ISBN 978-84-87334-25-2.