Purple Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes caeruleus) [XC450421]
by Brice de la Croix from Roura, Crique Saint-Georges, French Guiana (song)
Purple Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes caeruleus) [XC147579]
by Mitch Lysinger from Barinitas, Bolivar, Barinas, Venezuela (call)
Subspecies
This genus and Dacnis were previously regarded as members of a separate family, Coerebidae, but later placed in present family on basis of similarities in skull anatomy. Molecular phylogenies indicate that the two genera are sisters and form a monophyletic group with Tersina. Thought to form a superspecies with Shining Honeycreeper (Cyanerpes lucidus) and in the past sometimes treated as conspecific, but the two are sympatric in extreme eastern Panama and adjacent north-western Colombia.
The following 5 subspecies are recognised:
chocoanus Hellmayr, 1920 - Extreme eastern Panama (Darién) and Pacific coast of Colombia (from Chocó) south to western Ecuador (south to El Oro).
caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) - Colombia (on eastern slope of eastern Andes in Boyacá), Venezuela (mountains of Falcón, coastal range from Carabobo east to Sucre, northern Monagas, Delta Amacuro, also western Amazonas and Bolívar), Suriname, French Guiana (probably also lowlands of Guyana), and north-central Brazil (south to R Tapajós and north-western Maranhío).
longirostris (Cabanis, 1850) - Trinidad.
hellmayri Gyldenstolpe, 1945 - Potaro Highlands, in Guyana.
microrhynchus (von Berlepsch, 1884) - Venezuela (western and southern Zulia, western base of Andes in Táchira and Mérida, eastern base southern from south-eastern Lara, and northern and western Amazonas south of R Orinoco), and Colombia (northern base of western Andes in R Sinú drainage and east to middle Magdalena Valley, also east of Andes from Meta and Caquetá) south to eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern Bolivia (south to Santa Cruz), and Amazonian Brazil (east to mouth of R Amazon and west-central Mato Grosso).
BirdLife International Species Factsheet