| Brace's emerald | |
|---|---|
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| Artist rendition | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Clade: | Strisores |
| Order: | Apodiformes |
| Family: | Trochilidae |
| Genus: | Riccordia |
| Species: | †R. bracei |
| Binomial name | |
| †Riccordia bracei (Lawrence, 1877) | |
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Brace's emerald (Riccordia bracei) is anextinctspecies of hummingbird which wasendemic to the main island of theBahamas,New Providence.
Its weight was 0.43 oz (12 g) its wingspan was 9.25 in (23.5 cm);its length was 5.5 in (14 cm) and the length of its tail was 2.5 in (6.4 cm). The blackbill was slightly straight and short. The legs and feet were black. The back exhibited a slaty blue hue with a black gleam. The head was similarly coloured to the back, with the absence of the black gloss. Directly behind the eyes was a white eyebrow. The throat was white. The abdomen had whitefeathers with black and yellow splotches. The wings exhibited a bluish hue with white wingbars. The rectrices were blackish. The crissum (the undertail covert which surrounded thecloacal opening) was white with a faint yellow hue at the edges.
For more than a hundred years, Brace's emerald was only known by thetype specimen, one single male which was shot by bird collector Lewis J. K. Brace on July 13, 1877, around three miles (4.8 kilometres) away fromNassau on the island of New Providence. The skin (which is unfortunately heavily damaged at the throat) is now at theSmithsonian Institution inWashington, D.C. The species was long ignored by ornithological authorities. In 1880, it was listed without commentary as a synonym of theCuban emerald (Riccordia ricordii).
Not until the 1930s was the unique status of theholotype even recognized, as it was seen as an aberrant specimen of the Cuban emerald that had become avagrant to New Providence. American ornithologistJames Bond was the first to discuss the differences betweenR. ricordii andR. bracei. In 1945, he splitR. ricordii and regardedR. ricordii bracei as a new subspecies. In contrast to the Cuban species, the specimen from New Providence was smaller, had a longer bill and a different plumage.
In 1982, palaeornithologists William Hilgartner andStorrs Olson discovered fossil remains of three hummingbird species from thePleistocene in the deposits in a cave of New Providence.[citation needed] These were theBahama woodstar (Nesophlox evelynae), Cuban emerald (R. ricordii; alsoR. elegans), and another species, which was later identified asRiccordia bracei. This provided evidence that Brace had discovered a new hummingbird species which lived on New Providence since the Pleistocene. It formed arelict population, and most likely due to habitat loss and human disturbance (e.g. agriculture), it became extinct at the end of the 19th century. BothR. bracei andR. elegans are listed as extinct on the 2024IUCN Red List as extinct species.[1][3]
