decidedly longer than head, stout, more or less decurved, terminal portion of maxillary toniimn minutely serrate, and color of tail mainly either chestnut glossed with purple, or else (in A. viridis) bright bluish green or steel blue.
Bill decidedly longer than head, stout, rather broad and depressed basally, faintly to decidedly decurved; culmen rounded but at base contracted into a distinct narrow ridge; terminal portion of maxillary tomium minutely serrate; mandible with a broad lateral median sulcus or groove, which basally involves the greater part of upper half of the ramus. Nasal operculum very narrow anteriorly, nude for anterior and exterior portion, the frontal feathering extending anteriorly much beyond middle of nasal operculum, forming a more or less distinct but sometimes very short and obtuse point or antia on each side of the mesorhinium. Tarsus naked, rather stout; lateral toes nearly equal in length (or the outer one slightly longer), both slightly shorter than middle toe, the hallux shorter than lateral toes; claws relatively small. Wing less than three times as long as exposed culmen, the outermost primary longest. Tail more than half as long as wing, slightly rounded or emarginate, the rectrices broad, firm, rounded, or broadly subangular terminally.
Coloration. — Above metallic green, bronze-green, bronze or olive glossed with coppery bronze; tail (except middle rectrices) chestnut glossed with metallic violet or purple and margined with blackish, or else dark steel blue, greenish blue, or bluish green; adult males with under parts metallic green (with or without black on throat or chest), black medially bordered laterally with greenish blue or (on neck) with metallic violet-red, or else chin and throat greenish golden bronze, breast black; adult females (except of A. mango and A. viridis, in which sexes are alike in color), wholly dull whitish beneath (A. dominicus and A. aurulentus), or with a black, green, or bluish median stripe bordered laterally with a whitish one.
Range. — Southern Mexico to Cayenne, eastern Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru; Greater Antilles (Jamaica, Haiti, Porto Rico, and St. Thomas). (Nine species.)
KEY TO THE SPECIES AND SUBSPECIES OF ANTHRACOTHORAX.
a. Tail not steel blue; under parts not uniform green (if green the chest more bluish, in contrast with emerald green of throat and bronze-green of sides).
- b. Sides of neck metallic reddish purple or purplish red; under parts wholly black, or else chin and throat (only) dark metallic greenish or bluish. (Jamaica.)
- bb. Sides of neck not metallic purple or reddish; under parts not wholly black, nor with chin and throat dark metallic greenish or bluish.
- c. Under parts without white (except femoral tufts). (Adult males.)
- d. Throat black, at least medially.
- e. Throat and under parts of body broadly (mostly) black. (Anthracothorax nigricollis.)
- d. Throat black, at least medially.
- c. Under parts without white (except femoral tufts). (Adult males.)
