New species of hummingbird identified in Ecuador
A team of ornithologists in Ecuador has identified a new species of hummingbird: a lovely blue-green creature that lives in a cold, barren highland area and is danger of extinction.
Team leader Francisco Sornoza saw one of the birds through binoculars a year ago and had a hunch that it was a previously unknown species.
The bird is about 11 cm (four inches) long and has a stunning, deep blue neck, a white breast with a black stripe and greenish-blue head and body feathers.
It has been given the name Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus, or blue-throated star. The discovery was announced Thursday in a journal called The Auk: Ornithological Advances.
The bird lives at an altitude of 3,000 to 3,700 meters (10,000 to 12,000 feet) in an area near the Pacific coast that straddles the provinces of Loja and El Oro.
Researchers estimate there are only 300 of these birds and say its habitat is shrinking dramatically. Mining in the area also threatens it.
"It is a species that is in severe danger," Sornoza,