Green-tailed Sunbird - BirdForum Opus

Male, subspecies A. n. angkanensis
Photo © by REMO
Doi Inthanon National Park, Thailand

Aethopyga nipalensis

Identification

Female, subspecies A. n. horsfieldii
Photo © by Alok Tewari
Ranikhet, Alt. 6500 ft., Forest-edge, Uttarakhand Himalayas, India, 15 November 2019

Male 14–15 cm; female 10 cm

• Long curved bill
• Long tail

Distribution

Subspecies A. n. angkanensis
Juvenile molting into adult plumage
Photo © by jbpixels
Doi Inthanon National Park, Thailand
January 2020

Asia: found in China, Tibet, Nepal, India, eastern and western Himalayas, Bangladesh, Bhutan
Southeast Asia: Indochina, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand

Taxonomy

Female, subspecies A. n. koelzi
Photo © by peterday
Bhutan, April 2010

Subspecies

Male, subspecies nipalensis
Photo © by Santanu Manna
Sikkim, India, May 2014

There are 9 subspecies^[1]:

• A. n. horsfieldii:

• Western Himalayas (Garhwal to western Nepal)

• A. n. nipalensis:

• Western Nepal to north-eastern India (Darjiling) and Sikkim

• A. n. koelzi:

• Himalayas (Bhutan to north-eastern Myanmar, south-western China and north-western Tonkin)

• A. n. victoriae:

• Western Myanmar (Chin Hills)

• A. n. karenensis:

• South-eastern Myanmar (Karen Hills)

• A. n. australis:

• High mountains of southern peninsular Thailand south of Isthmus of Kra

• A. n. blanci:

• High mountains of Laos

• A. n. ezrai:

• High mountains of southern Vietnam

• A. n. angkanensis: the only subspecies to have the scarlet breast band

• High mountains of northern Thailand (Doi Ang Ka)
• Doi Ang Ka is the former name for Doi Inthanon.

Habitat

Cloud Forest, and secondary growth. Observed at heights between 1500m and 2000m.

Behaviour

Diet

Their diet appears to consist of nectar and small arthropods.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Lepage D. (2021) [Avibase - https://avibase.ca/02BA43E4 ]. Retrieved 24 November 2021
3. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved January 2015)
4. Cheke, R. and C. Mann (2020). Green-tailed Sunbird (Aethopyga nipalensis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.grtsun1.01

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Green-tailed Sunbird. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 19 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Green-tailed_Sunbird

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