Archilochus alexandri
By: Biol. Jesús Ángel Barajas
As we continue celebrating our migratory hummingbirds, the featured hummingbird of the month is the Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri), which can be found in woodland habitats from Canada to Mexico.
This hummingbird swings its tail down and up more frequently than other hummingbirds while in flight. If you watch closely you will notice its deep purple throat color among its dark plumage.
The name Archilochus refers to Archilochus, a Greek poet from the island of Paros (600 B.C.), famous for his wild wit and disregard for convention; while alexandri was the epithet chosen by French ornithologists Jules Bourcier and Étienne Mulsant, in reference to a Dr. Alexandre who practiced in Mexico and sent biological specimens to Paris in the 1840s.
Finally, a curious fact: the Black-chinned Hummingbird has the smallest genome among living amniotes (a class which includes all birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians) according to the Animal Genome Size Database, possessing only 910 million base pairs, compared to the approximately 3.2 billion base pairs in the human genome.
A pollinator garden filled with flowers, or even a sugar-water hummingbird feeder, will attract these beautiful little creatures to your home.
