Short-crested Coquette

The short-crested coquette is 7 to 7.5 cm (2.8 to 3.0 in) long. Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. The adult male has a short rufous erectile crest; its longest feathers have green tips. It has emerald green upperparts with a white band between the back and the bronzy purple lower rump and green uppertail coverts. The throat is iridescent emerald green and the face features short orange cheek tufts tipped green. A white band separates the throat from the rest of the underparts, which are pale cinnamon. The central tail feathers are green and the rest reddish cinnamon with black tips. The adult female lacks the male's crest and cheek patches. Its forehead is dull cinnamon. Its upperparts are pale green; a buffy to whitish band separates the back from the dull green rump. The throat is whitish with a white band below it and the rest of the underparts are pale cinnamon. The central tail feathers are green with blackish tips and the rest cinnamon with a black bar near the end and pale buff tips. Immatures resemble the adult female.

The short-crested coquette is found only in Mexico, in the extremely restricted range of a 25 km (16 mi) stretch of the Atoyac-Paraíso-Puerto del Gallo road in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, north-west of Acapulco. It inhabits semi-deciduous and humid evergreen forest, pine-oak forest, and plantations. In elevation it ranges between 900 and 1,800 m (3,000 and 5,900 ft).

The short-crested coquette feeds on small arthropods and on the nectar of a variety of small flowering plants. It catches insects by hawking from a perch. It defers to larger hummingbirds.