Redbilled Streamertailed Doctor Birds (Trochilus polytmus): Hummingbirds Native Only to Jamaica

It augurs well for species to include within their life cycles and natural histories associations with Småland-born Swedish noble Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707 – January 10, 1778), as:

• Biologist;
• Botanist;
• Father of modern ecology and taxonomy;
• Physician;
• Zoologist.

Red-billed streamertail hummingbirds indeed have that connection in 1758 through the world-famous scientist’s descriptions for wildlife-loving amateurs and professionals outside Jamaica. It is a bit unexpected to find such a link between Jamaica’s bright but diminutive avian populations and eighteenth-century Europe’s leading investigative writer. But bio-geographical diversity may be credited with attracting worldwide scientific attention to Jamaica-gathered specimens bequeathed by Killyleagh-born British physician Sir Hans Sloane (April 16, 1660 – January 11, 1753) to the formation of London’s British Museum.

Jamaica’s national bird carries two sets of names. One set communicates what persists in common, non-scientific, popular terminology. It conserves for Jamaica’s avian icon such local designations as:

• Doctor bird;
• Green-and-black streamertail;
• Jamaican streamertail;
• Red-billed streamertail;
• Ribbon-tail;
• Scissors-tail;
• Streamertail hummingbird;
• Western streamertail.  

It contrasts with binomial (“two-name”), Latin, taxonomic nomenclatures of scientists. It does not have the same likelihood as common names of remaining unchanged over time. It expresses the vibrancy of scientific procedures by name changes in response to investigative revisions and technological breakthroughs. In regard to Jamaica’s long-tailed hummingbird, the modern categorization is Trochilus polytmus, from the respectively Latinized forms of the ancient Greek words:

• τρόχιλος (trokhilos, “wren”);
• πολυς (polys, “much”) and τιμη (timē, “worth”).

Wildlife-lovers assume that Jamaicans comprehend English-language references to red-billed streamertail hummingbirds. The Land of Springs counts among the world’s English-speaking countries as one of:

• The colonies of the British Empire, since 1655;
• The members of the Commonwealth of Nations, since 1962.

Visitors perhaps do not recall world history’s slippery course, whereby the apodiform (hummingbird, swift, tree swift) order member just as easily may be answering now to names in:

• Arawak or Taíno;
• Spanish.

European politico-economic and socio-linguistic interactions go back to Genoa-born Italian explorer and navigator Christopher Columbus’s (By October 31, 1451 – May 20, 1506) landing in 1494 at Discovery or St. Ann’s Bay. So Spanish in fact holds the record as Jamaica’s little-used, longest-spoken, non-indigenous language.

But the Land of Springs carries the Anglicization of the Arawakan name Xaymaca instead of the dedication to Spain’s patron saint, Santiago (de Zebedeo, A.D. 1^st century – A.D. 44). The linguistic configuration comes about through Europe’s super-competitive financiers and rulers from the fifteenth century onward. Particular due goes to effective strategic planning and tactical maneuvers in 1655 under the leadership of:

• Admiral William Penn (April 23, 1621 – September 16, 1670);
• General Robert Venables (1612? – July 1687).

It also is due to the clever insights and crucial participation of such subsequent Jamaican power-holders as Captain John East (died after 1676) and Major Richard Hope that red-billed streamertails are studied by Jamaican English- and Jamaican patois-speaking locals and scientists.

Locals access red-billed streamertails everywhere except Jamaica’s easternmost extremity inhabited by:

• Black-billed hummingbirds (Trochilus scitulus) of different bill widths, body sizes, calls, and courtships;
• Hybrids at the Blue and John Crow Mountains’ intersections.

Despite closed and elfin forest habitat preferences, ribbon-tailed hummingbirds adapt to forest edges and water gardens. They consume:

• Arachnids (especially spiders);
• Insects (especially ants).

They drink nectars from:

• Native Bauhinia (orchid tree), Besleria, Calliandra, Erythrina (coral tree), Hohenbergia, Meriania, Psychotria, and Tecoma (trumpet vine);
• Naturalized Eucalyptus and Spathodea (African tulip tree).

They favor:

• Altitudes 3,280.84 feet (1,000 meters) above sea level;
• Niches 6.56 – 13.12 feet (2 – 4 meters) above ground level.

They inhabit higher elevations outside year-round breeding’s peak months of January to mid-May.

Female streamer-swallows build 3.28 – 9.84 feet (1 – 3 meters) above ground cup-shaped, twig-secured nests with:

• Cobweb-, fiber-, hair-lined interiors;
• Lichen-bolstered exteriors.

Up to thrice yearly, females deliver two bean-sized, white eggs in 14 – 21 days. Hatchlings emerge black, with two grey rows topside. They fledge within 19 – 28 days. Communication involves:

• High-pitched, wing-fluttered hums;
• Metallic chink-chink, ting-ting;
• Sharp tee-tee-tee, teeet-teeet.

Black-headed, ear-tufted adult males have:

• 5.12- to 6.69-inch (13- to 17-centimeter) black streamertails;
• 3.54- to 5.12-inch emerald bodies;
• Weights averaging 0.18 ounces (5.2 grams).

White-belled females have:

• Blue-and-green, streamerless, white-tipped tails;
• 4.13-inch (10.5-centimeter) green bodies;
• Lateral-spotted breasts;
• Weights averaging 0.16 ounces (4.4 grams).

Coral-red male and dull red female dark-tipped bills measure 0.91 inches (2.3 centimeters) long.

Two must-see Jamaican animals include:

• Giant Homerus swallowtails (Papilio homerus);
• Red-billed streamer-tailed doctor birds.

Everybody knows that the above-mentioned butterflies commemorate Homer (flourished 8t century B.C.?), ancient spokesperson for displaced civilizations. Nobody knows why the afore-referenced hummingbirds get called doctor birds. People mull:

• Medical achievements by coattail- and hat-wearing European doctors;
• Medicinal benefits to flowers lanced by hummingbird bills;
• Reincarnation channels from dead souls to live scissortails;
• Ritual practices by tobacco-frequenting (Nicotiana spp) shamans and streamertails.

But until Arawak petroglyphs or European diaries disprove or prove the preceding hypotheses, it will be possible to love completely -- without understanding totally (A River Runs Through It, p. 159) -- Air Jamaica’s avian logo and Jamaican parks’ lepidopteran icon.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

satellite image of Jamaica: island paradise serves as only homeland of Red-Billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus).
Jacques Descloitres, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_image_of_Jamaica_in_November_2001.jpg

Sir Hans Sloane: the bequest of his library, Jamaican specimens and natural history collection, etc., was instrumental to foundation of British Museum.
1736 oil on canvas by Stephen Slaughter (1697 - 1765)
National Portrait Gallery, London; transferred from British Museum in 1879: Stephencdickson, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Sloane_by_Stephen_Slaughter,_1736,_National_Portrait_Gallery,_London.JPG

Green Grotto Caves: located near Discovery Bay, credited as first landing by Christopher Columbus (c. October 31, 1450/October 30, 1451 - May 20, 1506)
According to legend, during English invasion of 1655, Arawaks helped Spaniards to escape by way of caves' secret passages.
Saint Ann's Parish, north central coastal Jamaica: Brandie (Brandie!), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/brandie/4892661754/

Admiral Sir William Penn: Father of Province of Philadelphia's founder William Penn (October 14, 1644 – July 30, 1718); extractor of Jamaica from Spanish control
ca. 1665-1666 oil on canvas by Sir Peter Lely (September 14, 1618–November 30, 1680), English court painter of Dutch origin
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, South East London, South East England: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flagmen_of_Lowestoft_Admiral_Sir_William_Penn_1621-70_by_Sir_Peter_Lely.jpg

Jamaica's Blue Mountains primarily occupy Portland Parish and Saint Mary Parish, with spillovers into Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas parishes.
view of Blue Mountains from Oatley Mountain Trail in southeastern Portland's Holywell National Park: Wolmadrian, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Mountains,_Jamaica.jpg

female Red-billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus)
Lime Tree Farm, Blue Mountains, Saint Andrew Parish, southeastern Jamaica: DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-billed_Streamertail_female_RWD2.jpg

Trochilus polytmus synecology: Jamaican giant swallowtail (Papilio homerus), Western Hemisphere's largest swallowtail butterfly
Once plentiful, but now endangered, Jamaican giant swallowtail is found only in Blue and John Crow Mountains and central northwest Jamaica's Cockpit Country rainforest.
Ulster Museum, Belfast Botanic Gardens, Northern Ireland: Robert Nash, robert.nash at magni.org.uk, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Papilio_homerus_ulster.jpg

male Red-billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus)
Lime Tree Farm, Blue Mountains, Saint Andrew Parish, southeastern Jamaica: DickDaniels (http://carolinabirds.org/), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-billed_Streamertail_male_RWD4.jpg

floral synecology: Trochilus polytmus, under synonym of Aiturus polytmus, with Phycella herbertiana
illustration by Louis Victor Bevalet (1808 - )
Étienne Mulsant and Édouard Verreaux, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux-Mouches (1874), between pp. 244-245: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39878232

iridescent emerald body of male Red-billed Streamertail (Trochilus polytmus)
Jamaica's national bird, Red-billed Streamertail, is also known as doctor bird, scissor-tail or scissors tail hummingbird.: dominic sherony, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red-billed_Streamertail_2506104129.jpg

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