Purple-throated Carib

©Peter Bradley

Published: July 20, 2003

Peter Bradley of St. Louis, Missouri, photographed this male Purple-throated Carib in St. Lucia, West Indies.

In St. Lucia, Bradley met Ethan Temeles, a biologist at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Temeles published a paper in Science magazine in July 2000, arguing that the sexual dimorphism of the birds (Eulampis jugularis) is the result of ecology.

The males and females have a purplish red malar, throat, and chest, dark velvet head and back, and green wings. The only difference is that the female's bill is longer and more decurved.

Bradley took the photo with a FinePix 3800 digital camera during a visit to the Diamond Botanical Gardens.

View photos of other hummingbirds:
- Anna's Hummingbird female and nestling
- Anna's Hummingbird with a water-soaked bill
- Black-chinned Hummingbird
- Broad-tailed Hummingbird
- Buff-bellied Hummingbird
- Calliope Hummingbird
- Costa's Hummingbird
- Purple-crowned Woodnymph
- Ruby-throated Hummingbird perched
- Ruby-throated Hummingbirds swarming a feeder
- Rufous Hummingbird in flight at Oregon's William L. Finley NWR
- Rufous Hummingbird chicks in the nest
- Rufous Hummingbird hovering near a nectar feeder in British Columbia
- Rufous Hummingbird, close-up portrait of hovering bird
- Rufous Hummingbirds colliding in flight
- Rufous-tailed Hummingbird
- Tufted Coquette