Hummingbirds of Santa Teresa, State of Espírito Santo, Southeastern Brazil

Hummingbirds of Santa Teresa, State of Espirito Santo, Southeastern Brazil. Although the avifauna composition of Santa Teresa is well known, its hummingbird's data are based on the studies conducted by Augusto Ruschi between 1930 and 1970. The present work assesses the actual composition of hummingbirds in this locality, based on field research conducted between November 2002 and January 2004. Our study pointed the occurrence of 22 species along an altitudinal gradient of almost 1.000m. From this total, 16 species showed to be locally common, including species of Phaethornithinae and Trochilinae. Twenty one species were recorded in the mountain region (> 500m), whereas 9 species were recorded exclusively there. In contrast, 13 species were recorded in the lowland region (< 500m), where only one species was found to be exclusive. Cluster Analyses demonstrated that the PMBML (7.7 ha), which presents historical resources for hummingbird attraction, was the most dissimilar environment, differing even from the protected forests (Euclidiane Distance= 0.60), for which 12 species were recorded. Thirteen species known for Santa Teresa were not recorded during our field survey. The reasons for their absence in our field survey are discussed