Related Posts
Creature Feature: The Northern Bald IbisThis week’s Creature Feature takes us to Africa and the Middle East, where you’ll find a rather odd...
Creature Feature: The Rufous-headed HornbillToday’s Creature Feature takes us to the rainforests of the Philippines, where we will find a very noisy...
Creature Feature: The Balearic ShearwaterThis week’s Creature Feature follows a tale of mistaken identity.
The Balearic Shearwater is a critically endangered seabird native...
Creature Feature: The Southern Mountain Yellow-legged FrogWe are heading to the US Southwest today to find one of the most critically endangered species in...
Creature Feature: The Basking MalachiteToday’s Creature Feature takes us to the southern tip of Africa, where we will find a neat little...
Tip of the Day
Go grocery shopping locally to help reduce your carbon footprint
Creature Feature: The Honduran Emerald
Image Source: Flickr. By: Dominic Sherony.
Relatively small in size and mostly green in color, Honduran Emeralds live in the arid interior valleys of Honduras. Their range has included Yoro, Olanchito, the Agalta valley, and Valle de Telica. Surveys conducted in late 2008 also found the bird sparsely throughout 6 sections of forest in the Santa Barbara department. Although they choose scrub and thorn-forests as their home, their habitat is severely under threat.
Most of the thorn-forest area has been cleared away for grazing. Any that remains has become extremely dry. Habitats have also been destroyed for the sake of rice cultivation, pineapple plantations, and roads. Their population is estimated to be somewhere between 250 and 1000, though that’s a rough guess and they are, unfortunately, on the decline.
To find out more about this great, little bird, you can check out its profile at BirdLife International.
By Heidi Marshall
Tags: bird, Creature Feature, critically endangered species, Honduran Emerald, hummingbird, spotlight
Other Greenfudge.org posts
Endangered Species of the Week: Asian buffalo
Species: Asian buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) Status: Endangered (EN) Interesting Fact: The horn span of the Asian buffalo is wider than that of any other bovid! At up to more than a tonne in weight, the Asian buffalo is a massive, powerful animal with long, crescent-shaped, ribbed horns. Native to Southeast Asia, the Asian buffalo spends much of its time wallowing in rivers or mud holes, and it has large, splayed hooves which are advantageous when walking on the muddy, marshy ground. A gregarious but not...
Preserving Japan’s giant salamanders
In Japan, the giant salamander – or hanzaki – is a national monument. Children sing its praises and a festival is held in its honor. Unlike most salamanders, which are generally only a couple of inches or a few centimeters in length, the hanzaki can grow to be an enormous 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and weigh as much as 34 kg (80 lbs). This ancient species of giant salamander has barely changed for 20 million years and has a definite...
Meat eating and the environment – again
The Ecologist recently published an interview with Jonathan Safran Froer, author of Eating Animals, entitled “Environmentalists who eat meat have a blind spot”. But Froer isn’t that cut and dry when it comes to meat eating and being an environmentalist. He avoids purist, all-or-nothing approaches to the argument and I agree. Ideals are goals, not things that should be either lived up to or cast aside: Oh I can’t be bothered to be a vegan, so f-it, let’s go to Micky D’s…...
Breaking: 125 beached whales die in New Zealand
According to an AFP story, 105 pilot whales died after being stranded on a beach near the town of Nelson on the South Island of New Zealand on Saturday. A further 21 whales beached and died on Sunday on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. Local volunteers and tourists were able to get 42 whales back into the sea, where one promptly gave birth to a calf, giving the tragic story a silver lining. 'Last they were seen, they...
Coral Larvae Move to the Sounds of Reefs
Compared to the rest of the universe, the Earth is rather small in size. However, it’s also big enough that, after centuries of exploration and studies, we are still only aware of a fraction of all the life and activity it contains. New discoveries happen all the time and that includes discovering characteristics of species we’ve known for a long time. A few years ago, Dr. Steve Simpson, of the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, discovered that baby reef...
‘Fracking’ sparks concern and controversy across globe
Hydraulic fracturing is the controversial practice of extracting natural gas from shale rock by drilling, planting explosives and then pumping vast amounts of water and chemicals into the rock to open up gas deposits. Commonly referred to as ‘fracking’, domestic hydraulic fracturing is being touted by governments and fossil fuel corporations in several countries as being cheaper, safer and more climate-friendly than oil or coal extraction, as well as less dependent on the instability of international markets and political situations than...
Chernobyl: Green shoots in a disaster zone
In 1946, in the aftermath of the atomic bomb detonation in Hiroshima Japan, American journalist John Hersey traveled to the devastated city to write an article, entitled ‘Hiroshima’, for the The New Yorker magazine. The resulting, incomparable 31,000-word piece describes the experiences of several survivors of the attack. Among the harrowing portrayals of death and destruction, ‘Hiroshima’ also recounts how an unusual amount of greenery quickly sprang up to cover the ruins of the city, as if the radioactive fallout from...
Australian Cane Toads: Should They Stay or Should They Go?
In 1935, the Cane Toad was introduced to Australia in an attempt to control the native Cane Beetle problem. Since the introduction, the Cane Toad population has swelled from 102 to over 200 million of these hopping amphibians. This particular species of toad is notorious for its toxins. When a Cane Toad is threatened, it will secrete a milky-white fluid known as “bufotoxin”. Another particular chemical that also comes from this toad is bufotenin, which can be comparable to heroin and...
Primate inebriates descend on South African vineyards
Last month it was reported in the Telegraph how clever baboons in South Africa have learned to recognize the door-locking signal ‘beep’ before deciding whether or not to break into cars parked at a popular tourist spot in Cape Town. This month the buzz is that baboons are raiding the vineyards of Cape Town’s wine country on a daily basis and entering the city’s exclusive suburbs in search of easy pickings. Sometimes the baboons even gorge themselves on grapes that have partially...
“No Impact Man” Makes Big Impression on Audiences
In the new environmental documentary “No Impact Man”, Colin Beavan tries to live his life as the title says – making absolutely no impact on the earth. The movie, though playing only in New York and Los Angeles, is one of the most awaited films of the year. The film documents the life of Beavan, a former high-living Manhattanite who decided that for one year, he would live his life with a reduced carbon footprint – that meant eating as locally...
View all articles
You can also log in to post a comment.