![]() The vervain hummingbird does not migrate in the conventional sense but appears to make elevational movements in response to food availability. In elevation it ranges from sea level to at least 1,600 m (5,200 ft). It occurs in gallery forest, dry forest, desert scrub-shrub, gardens, and even urban areas. The species inhabits almost every available landscape throughout its range except the interior of dense montane forest. There is one sight report from Puerto Rico. vielloti is found in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the island of Hispaniola and also smaller nearby islands. The nominate subspecies of vervain hummingbird is found on Jamaica. The other tail feathers are black with varying amounts of white on their tips. The base of its central feathers are dark green and the rest of their length is black. The tail is rounded, not forked like the male's. The throat is pale gray that darkens down the underparts to the vent area. Females are dark metallic green to bluish green above and on the flanks. Its tail is entirely black and slightly forked. The chin, throat, and chest are pale gray lightly spotted with darker gray the belly and undertail coverts are dark metallic green. Males have dull metallic green uppersides that are almost black on the rump and uppertail coverts. Males are unique among hummingbirds by not having any iridescent feathering. All have a short, straight, dull black bill. The sexes are nearly alike but for their tails and the subspecies have only subtle plumage differences. The vervain hummingbird is perhaps the second-smallest bird in the world after the smallest, the bee hummingbird, though some other tiny ones are close to it in size. Two subspecies of vervain hummingbird are recognised, the nominate M. ![]() ![]() The vervain hummingbird is now placed together with the tiny Cuban bee hummingbird in the genus Mellisuga that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. Linnaeus based his description on a bird that had been described and illustrated in 1747 by the English naturalist George Edwards. ![]() The vervain hummingbird was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Trochilus minimus. It is found on Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Jamaica. The vervain hummingbird ( Mellisuga minima) is a species of hummingbird in tribe Mellisugini of subfamily Trochilinae, the "bee hummingbirds". ![]()
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