Shining Sunbeam

• Its iridescence is on the rump, not the throat: from the front it looks like a plain brown hummingbird, and only when it turns does it show a flash of copper and violet.
• It lives above 4,000 metres at some points in the Andes, where the night-time temperature drops below zero all year round, and it depends on nightly torpor to survive.
• It pollinates the frailejones and other plants of the páramo, an ecosystem that exists only in the northern Andes and that is the main regulator of that region's water supply.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Páramo, high-Andean scrub and cloud forest edge, between 2,500 and 4,500 metres

Sexual maturity

12 months

Gestation / incubation

17 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

2 eggs

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglaeactis_cupripennis

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.