Tourmaline Sunangel

The tourmaline sunangel is 10 to 11 cm (3.9 to 4.3 in) long. Males weigh 3.5 to 8.5 g (0.12 to 0.30 oz) and females 4 to 5.2 g (0.14 to 0.18 oz). Their bill is blackish, straight, and of medium length. Both sexes have dark shining green upperparts and dusky gray underparts with round green spots. Their tails' central feathers are dark bronze and the others blackish. Adult males have a glittering green frontlet just above the bill, a dark purple-blue chin, and a glittering rosy pink gorget with a glittering emerald green border below it. Adult females lack the green frontlet, their chin is blackish, and their throat whitish with green to dusky speckles and sometimes a few glittering rosy feathers. Juveniles are like the adult female but the male has a white chin.

The tourmaline sunangel is found in all three Andes ranges of Colombia and south on the eastern slope to Ecuador's Morona-Santiago Province. It inhabits the interior and edges of humid to wet premontane forest, especially cloudforest and elfin forest. It also occurs in bushy clearings and shrubby pastures. In elevation it mainly ranges between 2,300 and 3,400 m (7,500 and 11,200 ft) but is found as low as 1,500 m (4,900 ft).

The tourmaline sunangel is aggressively territorial at feeding locations. It takes nectar from a variety of flowering plants, usually those low to the ground both in semi-open landscapes and within the forest. It usually clings to flowers to feed rather than hovering at them. It captures insects by hawking from a perch and by gleaning from vegetation.