Turquoise-throated puffleg | |
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Clade: | Strisores |
Order: | Apodiformes |
Family: | Trochilidae |
Genus: | Eriocnemis |
Species: | E. godini
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Binomial name | |
Eriocnemis godini (Bourcier, 1851)
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The turquoise-throated puffleg (Eriocnemis godini), also known as Godin's puffleg, is a species of hummingbird from Ecuador. It is mostly green with blue undertail coverts and white powder-puffs of downy feathers on the legs, and the male has a bluish-purple throat patch. It is only known from a few specimens taken in the nineteenth century and its taxonomic position is unclear. The type of habitat in which the type species was obtained has largely disappeared, and recent surveys trying to find this bird have failed. The International Union for Conservation of Nature believes it may be extinct, but there is a possibility that some individuals remain, so the bird has been rated as "critically endangered".