Mellisuga

Mellisuga is a genus of hummingbirds in the family Trochilidae.

Mellisuga
Mellisuga helenae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Apodiformes
Family: Trochilidae
Tribe: Mellisugini
Genus: Mellisuga
Brisson, 1760
Type species
Trochilus minimus
Linnaeus, 1758

The genus was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 with the vervain hummingbird as the type species.[1][2] The name Mellisuga is a combination of the Latin words mel or mellis, meaning "honey" and sugere, meaning "to suck".[3]

Extant species

The genus contains two species:[4]

ImageScientific nameCommon NameDistribution
M. minimaVervain hummingbirdDominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica
M. helenaeBee hummingbirdCuba and the Isle of Pines.

References

  1. Brisson, Mathurin Jacques (1760). Ornithologie, ou, Méthode contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, especes & leurs variétés (in French and Latin). Volume 1. Paris: Jean-Baptiste Bauche. Vol. 1, p. 40, Vol. 3, p. 694.
  2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1945). Check-list of Birds of the World. Volume 5. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 135.
  3. Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Names. London, UK: Christopher Helm. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
  4. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2019). "Hummingbirds". World Bird List Version 9.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 1 April 2019.


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