Selasphorus Explained

Selasphorus is a genus of hummingbirds from Middle and North America.

Taxonomy

The genus Selasphorus was introduced in 1832 by the English naturalist William John Swainson to accommodate the rufous hummingbird which is now the type species.^{[1] [2]} The name combines the Ancient Greek selas meaning "light" or "flame" with -phoros meaning "-carrying".^[3]

The genus contains the following nine species:^[4]

The wine-throated hummingbird and the bumblebee hummingbird were formerly placed in the genus Atthis. Molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2014 and 2017 found that Atthis was embedded within Selasphorus. The genera were therefore merged and these hummingbirds were moved to Selasphorus.^{[4] [5] [6]}

Notes and References

1. Book: Swainson . William John . William John Swainson . Richardson . J. . John Richardson (naturalist) . 1831 . Fauna boreali-americana, or, The zoology of the northern parts of British America . Part 2. The Birds . J. Murray . London . 324 . The title page bears the year 1831 but the volume did not appear until 1832.
2. Book: Peters . James Lee . James L. Peters . 1945 . Check-List of Birds of the World . 5 . Harvard University Press . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 141 .
3. Book: Jobling, James A. . 2010. The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names . Christopher Helm . London . 978-1-4081-2501-4 . 352 .
4. Web site: Gill . Frank . Frank Gill (ornithologist) . Donsker . David . Rasmussen . Pamela . Pamela Rasmussen . amp . July 2020 . Hummingbirds . IOC World Bird List Version 10.2 . International Ornithologists' Union . 11 January 2020 .
5. McGuire . J. . Witt . C. . Remsen . J.V. . Corl . A. . Rabosky . D. . Altshuler . D. . Dudley . R. . amp . 2014 . Molecular phylogenetics and the diversification of hummingbirds . Current Biology . 24 . 8 . 910–916 . 10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.016 . 24704078 . free . 2014CBio...24..910M .
6. Licona-Vera . Yuyini . Ornelas . Juan Francisco . amp . 2017 . The conquering of North America: dated phylogenetic and biogeographic inference of migratory behavior in bee hummingbirds . BMC Evolutionary Biology . 17 . 1 . 126 . 10.1186/s12862-017-0980-5 . 28583078 . 5460336 . free. 2017BMCEE..17..126L .