Racket-tipped Thorntail

Discosura longicaudus (Gmelin, JF, 1788)

Spanish: Rabudito de Raquetas

The Racket-tipped Thorntail (Discosura longicaudus) is a hummingbird in the subfamily Lesbiinae (coquettes and brilliants), tribe Lesbiini (coquettes). It weighs about 3.4 g and its bill is 15.4 mm long. It lives in Brazil, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela and French Guiana. Its IUCN Red List status is Least concern, with a decreasing population.

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At a glance

Weight

3.4 g, about 3 paperclips

Bill

15.4 mm

Lives in

Forest

Moves

Stays put all year

Red List status

Least concern, decreasing

Its place in the family

1. Family Trochilidae hummingbirds
2. Subfamily Lesbiinae coquettes and brilliants
3. Tribe Lesbiini coquettes
4. Genus Discosura thorntails

What Discosura share: Males have thin, spiky tail feathers.

Where it lives · 6 countries

• Brazil
• Suriname
• Guyana
• Venezuela
• French Guiana
• Colombia uncertain

Others in the genus Discosura

• Green Thorntail Discosura conversii
• Coppery Thorntail Discosura letitiae
• Black-bellied Thorntail Discosura langsdorffi
• Wire-crested Thorntail Discosura popelairii

Sources

Names: eBird/Clements Checklist (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Groups: Dickinson & Remsen (2013) and McGuire et al. (2014). Weight, bill, habitat and movement: AVONET (Tobias et al. 2022, CC BY 4.0). Countries: BirdLife International DataZone, checked against eBird records via GBIF. Red List status and trend: BirdLife International, the IUCN Red List authority for birds.

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