Rufous-throated Sapphire

The rufous-throated sapphire is 8.4 to 9.1 cm (3.3 to 3.6 in) long. Males weigh 4.1 to 4.5 g (0.14 to 0.16 oz) and females 3.9 to 4.3 g (0.14 to 0.15 oz). Males have a medium length, straight, coral red bill with a black tip; females' bills have less red. The species gets its English name from the males' intensely rufous chin; females' chins are a paler rufous. Adult males have dark green upperparts with coppery violet uppertail coverts. Their throat, chest, and belly are iridescent violet-blue and their undertail coverts chestnut. Their central pair of tail feathers are coppery with a violet tinge and the other four pairs chestnut with dusky gray tips. Adult females' upperparts are the same as males'. Their underparts are grayish with large glittering blue-green spots on the throat and chest and buffy undertail coverts. Their tail is like the male's with paler edges on the outer feathers. Juveniles are similar to adult females but males have richer rufous on the chin.

The rufous-throated sapphire has three separate ranges. The largest spans from eastern Colombia east through Venezuela, the Guianas, and northern Brazil to the coast, from Colombia southwest through eastern Ecuador into northern Peru, and southwest in a wide swath from northeastern Brazil into northeastern Bolivia. Another spans from southeastern Brazil's Bahia state south to northern Paraná. The third encompasses southeastern Paraguay, northeastern Argentina, and adjacent southwestern Brazil according to the International Ornithological Committee and the Clements taxonomy. The South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithological Society lists the species as hypothetical in Paraguay and Argentina because the records have not been documented by photographs or other tangible evidence. The rufous-throated sapphire inhabits semi-open to open landscapes such as the edges of lowland forest, savanna with scattered stands of trees, clearings around rock outcrops, coffee plantations, and (rarely) open coastal vegetation. In elevation it is most numerous between 200 and 500 m (660 and 1,600 ft) but occurs as high as 1,850 m (6,100 ft).

The rufous-throated sapphire forages for nectar at a variety of flowering epiphytes, shrubs, vines, and trees. Species in least seven families are known nectar sources. It usually feeds from near the ground to the middle strata of forest, but in Amazonia will gather with other hummingbirds at flowering treetops. Males aggressively defend feeding territories. In addition to nectar the species feeds on insects caught by hawking from a perch and also gleaned from leaves or spiderwebs.