Vigors's sunbird

Vigors's sunbird (Aethopyga vigorsii), Sahyadri sunbird, or western crimson sunbird, is a species of sunbird which is endemic to the Western Ghats of India. It has been considered as a subspecies of the crimson sunbird (Aethopyga siparaja) but it does not have the central tail as elongated and is restricted in its distribution. [2]

Vigors's sunbird
Male A. vigorsii from Mangaon, Maharashtra, India
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Nectariniidae
Genus: Aethopyga
Species:
A. vigorsii
Binomial name
Aethopyga vigorsii
(Sykes, 1832)

The male has a scarlet throat and breast, while the rest of its under parts are uniformly grey. Its wings too are grey-brown and lack yellowish-olive edges.[3] However, it is yellow on the lower back and tail is bottle green.

The female's upperparts are dark olive, while its underparts are grey. A male who has not yet matured is similar to the female, but it has a dull scarlet throat and breast. [3]

The species is distributed mainly in the northern Western Ghats but has been reported from the Nilgiris.[2] It was named after Irish-born zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors by Colonel William Henry Sykes.

References
  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Aethopyga vigorsii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2018.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  2. Rasmussen PC & JC Anderton (2005). Birds of South Asia. The Ripley Guide. Volume 2. Washington DC and Barcelona: Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions. p. 550.
  3. Grimmett, Richard, Inskipp, Carol and Tim (2016). Birds of the Indian Subcontinent. India: Christopher Helm. p. 456. ISBN 978-8-1933-1509-5.


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