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White-tailed Emerald (Microchera chionura)

White-tailed Emerald
Photo: (c) noverholtz, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 — free for commercial reuse.

About the White-tailed Emerald

The white-tailed emerald (Microchera chionura) is a species of hummingbird in the "emeralds", tribe Trochilini of subfamily Trochilinae. It is native to the Talamancan montane forests. The white-tailed emerald was formerly placed with the coppery-headed emerald in the genus Elvira. A molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014 found that these two species were closely related to the snowcap in the then-monospecific genus Microchera. The International Ornithological Committee and the Clements taxonomy placed the three species together in Microchera which has priority. However, BirdLife International's Handbook of the Birds of the World retains them in Elvira. The white-tailed emerald is monotypic.

Source: White-tailed emerald on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA
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No audio on this page yet

We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 3 recordings for this species: 3 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.

As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.

Listed as recorded in Costa Rica in the xeno-canto catalogue.

Related species you can hear

  • SnowcapMicrochera albocoronatarecording

This species has no recording here yet — these relatives do, so you can hear what the family sounds like.