Pale-tailed Barbthroat

The pale-tailed barbthroat is 10 to 12.2 cm (3.9 to 4.8 in) long. Males weigh 4 to 7 g (0.14 to 0.25 oz) and females 4 to 6.5 g (0.14 to 0.23 oz). The adult male has bronze-green upperparts and breast, a dark ear patch and throat with a reddish patch below the later, and a pale malar stripe. The tail is dark with various shades and extent of color on the outer feathers. The belly is gray with ochre tints. It has a nearly straight bill. As with other hermit hummingbirds, the sexes are similar; the female's bill is somewhat more decurved than the male's and the plumage has less contrast among the throat, breast, and belly. Young birds resemble the adult but have ochraceous feather edges. The subspecies differ somewhat in the tail and belly coloration, and there are intergrades between cervinicauda and rufigastra and between rufigastra and leucurus.

The subspecies of pale-tailed barbthroat are distributed thus:

T. l. cervinicauda, eastern Colombia south through eastern Ecuador into northeastern Peru and east into western Amazonian Brazil T. l. rufigastra, eastern Peru south of the Marañón River to northern Bolivia T. l. leucurus, southern and eastern Venezuela through Guyana, Suriname, and Amazonian Brazil to northeastern Bolivia (but not confirmed in French Guiana) T. l. medianus, northeastern Amazonian Brazil south of the Amazon The pale-tailed barbthroat inhabits open and semi-open spaces within humid lowland and higher tropical forest, and other landscapes such as gallery forest, várzea and igapó swamp forests, and plantations. It is found from sea level to 850 m (2,790 ft) in Venezuela, in Peru mainly to 1,200 m (3,900 ft) but as high as 1,800 m (5,900 ft), and in Ecuador mainly to 1,100 m (3,600 ft) and as high as 1,600 m (5,200 ft).

Like other hermit hummingbirds, the pale-tailed barbthroat is a "trap-line" feeder, visiting a circuit of flowering plants. It feeds on nectar at Heliconia and several other tubular flowers and also on small arthropods.