Purple-throated Woodstar

The purple-throated woodstar is 6.8 to 7.5 cm (2.7 to 3.0 in) long and weighs 3.0 to 3.3 g (0.11 to 0.12 oz). Both sexes have a short, straight, black bill. Both have dusky bronze-green upperparts with a white patch on either side of the rump. The male has a small white spot behind the eye and the female a downward curved white line there. The male's gorget is shining violet-purple with a white band below it. Its lower breast is dusky bronze and the belly and flanks rufous. The forked tail is brownish purple. The female has a buffy white throat with dusky speckles at the side, a white band below it, a green lower breast, and a rufous belly. Its central tail feathers are bronze-green and the others cinnamon with a black band near the end.

The purple-throated woodstar is found discontinuously in eastern Panama's Darién Province, along both slopes of Colombia's western Andes and south to central Ecuador, and in southern Ecuador. It inhabits the edges and interior of humid forest and cloudforest. In elevation in ranges from sea level to 2,400 m (7,900 ft) but is most numerous above 1,000 m (3,300 ft).

The purple-throated woodstar forages for nectar high in flowering trees such as those of genera Cordia and Inga. Males defend feeding territories. In addition to feeding on nectar the species captures small arthropods by hawking from a perch.