Saw-billed hermit

Saw-billed hermit
Conservation status
Near Threatened  (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Clade:	Strisores
Order:	Apodiformes
Family:	Trochilidae
Subfamily:	Phaethornithinae
Genus:	Ramphodon Lesson, 1830
Species:	R. naevius
Binomial name
Ramphodon naevius (Dumont, 1818)
Synonyms
Trochilus naevius Dumont, 1818

The saw-billed hermit (Ramphodon naevius) is a hummingbird from southeastern Brazil, the only member of the genus Ramphodon. It is around 14–16 cm long and is one of the heaviest of the hermits; its straight bill has a hooked tip. It lives in humid forests, where it aggressively defends feeding routes ("trap-lines") from individuals of its own species as well as other hummingbirds. It is currently considered near-threatened, since it has a restricted range in threatened Atlantic forests.

The saw-billed hermit is placed in the hermit subfamily Phaethornithinae, but among these birds, it is the species most similar to the typical hummingbirds, Trochilinae (Hinkelmann, 1999). This, coupled with the considerable number of autapomorphies such as the unusual bill, suggest it is the most primitive species of the hermit lineage; a situation paralleled by the equally unusual tooth-billed hummingbird in the Trochilinae.

References

• Hinkelmann, C. (1999): 1. Saw-billed Hermit. In: del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. (editors) (1999): Handbook of Birds of the World, Volume 5: Barn-owls to Hummingbirds: 537, plate 45. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-25-3

External links

• BirdLife Species Factsheet
• Saw-billed Hermit photo gallery VIREO Photo-High Res-(Close-up)
• Saw-billed Hermit videos on the Internet Bird Collection