Elliotia, Stiles & Remsen & Mcguire, 2017

Stiles, F. Gary, Remsen, J. V. & Mcguire, Jimmy A., 2017, The generic classification of the Trochilini (Aves: Trochilidae): Reconciling taxonomy with phylogeny, Zootaxa 4353 (3), pp. 401-424 : 411-412

Elliotia , gen. nov.

Included species: Trochilus chionogaster von Tschudi , and Leucippus viridicauda Berlepsch. Both species weigh 4.5–5.5g, lack sexual dichromatism, and have mostly white underparts speckled with green laterally; they differ in the amount of white in the tail. Both occur on the lower eastern slope of the Andes in central Peru ( viridicauda ) and from northern Peru to northwestern Argentina ( chionogaster ). We select chionogaster (von Tschudi, 1846) as the type species. The genus name honors Daniel Giraud Elliot for his important early contributions to clarifying the generic taxonomy of the Trochilidae (see Stiles et al. 2017).

Subgroup D7 breaks up into two clear-cut groups. The first consists of the species amabilis (Gould) , decora (Salvin) and rosenbergi Boucard , which may be allocated to the genus Polyerata Heine, 1863 ; its type species is amabilis ( Gould, 1851) . Weller (2000) also included several other species in this genus, but all are placed in other sections of the phylogeny. The second group includes five species in four genera, arranged in a stepwise “cascade” with very short branches separating them, such that dividing the group into two to four genera (at least one of which would require a new generic name) would be arbitrary; thus, we treat all five species as congeneric. For this genus, Chlorestes Reichenbach,1854 has priority over Juliamyia Bonaparte, 1854 , its type species being Trochilus notatus ( Reich,1795) . Damophila , published by Reichenbach in the same work and on the same page as Chlorestes , is not available because it is preoccupied ( Özdikmen 2008, see Stiles et al., 2017); Özdikmen’s suggested replacement name Neodamophila is therefore a synonym of Chlorestes should julie ( Bourcier, 1842) , the type species of Juliamyia , and notatus be considered congeners, as we recommend here. All five are small hummingbirds (<4g in mass), with nearly truncate to strongly rounded tails in both sexes, differing mainly in colors and patterns; all but candida share moderate to strong sexual dichromatism. We also note that the genetic data strongly refute the inclusion of notatus in Chlorostilbon , as was done by Schuchmann (1999) because of the similarity of the males’ plumage colors. In fact, Chlorostilbon is among the most distantly related genera in the Trochilini ( McGuire et al. 2014).

Finally, we leave unclassified two Middle American species for which no genetic samples were available to McGuire et al. (2014): “ Amazilia ” boucardi ( Mulsant,1877) and “ A. ” luciae (Lawrence, 1868). The former was treated in the monotypic genus Arenella by Simon (1921), and as a member of Lepidopyga by Cory (1918) and Ridgway (1911), while luciae was described in Thaumatias by Lawrence. Both species were placed in Amazilia by Peters (1945) and most subsequent authors. Schuchmann (1999) and Weller (2000) included them in Polyerata and considered them to comprise a superspecies, although they differ appreciably in plumage: boucardi bears some resemblance to “ Lepidopyga ” goudoti , including in that the outer rectrices of the males are similarly narrow, whereas the plumage of luciae resembles more that of Polyerata . However, given the frequently unreliable nature of plumage color and pattern as generic characters among the Trochilinae , we prefer to treat both as incertae sedis until genetic data become available.

As outlined above, allocating species to genera among the emeralds has been fraught with difficulties. While we would like to preserve diagnosability of genera and retain what is salvageable of existing nomenclature in the interests of stability, our goal has been to bring the results into as close a concordance as possible with the branching pattern and branch lengths in the genetic tree ( McGuire et al. 2014). Where no clear recommendation was possible, we have clearly presented the options. To help clarify the latter, we present a list of the generic names mentioned above, when and in what form they were proposed, their type species, and when and by whom these had been fixed in Appendix 1, and we summarize our recommendations as a revised list of genera and species of the Trochilini in Appendix 2.

The generic rearrangements we recommend here based upon the phylogeny of McGuire et al. (2014) represent a drastic change from the three most recent classifications of the Trochilinae by Peters (1945), Schuchmann (1999) and Dickinson & Remsen (2013) in numbers of species per genus (summarized in Table 1) and generic circumscriptions ( Fig. 1 , Appendix 2). The classification by Peters (1945) was characterized by widespread lumping at both the species and genus levels, although he retained various species found to be synonyms or hybrids by later authors. Most of the changes since are due to the breakup of several large genera (especially Chlorostilbon , Amazilia and Hylocharis ) into smaller genera or through reassigning some species into previously small or monotypic genera (notably Chrysuronia and Chlorestes ), as well as the elimination of several genera for reasons of priority. The increase in the number of species by Schuchmann (1999) reflect rejection of several of Peters’ unsubstantiated lumpings; the increase by Dickinson & Remsen (2013) is mostly due to the restoration of species status to several species lumped by Schuchmann into Chlorostilbon mellisugus but recognized elsewhere, including those that the phylogeny mandates transferring to the genus Riccordia . The increase to 110 species in the classification presented here is due to recent recognition of species status for distinctive subspecies in Anthocephala and Stephanoxis and the inclusion of two recently extinct species of Riccordia .

1 = These genera were subdivided into subgenera.

Figures

FIGURE 1. The currently accepted classification of the Trochilini, with groups A, B, C and D and their subgroups, as derived from the phylogeny;at the extreme right of each groupare the new generic circumscriptions recommended and explainedinthe text.See Appendix 2 for the complete generic reclassification of the Trochilini.