The masked flowerpiercer (Diglossa cyanea) is a species of bird in the tanager family, Thraupidae. It is found in humid montane forest and scrub in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Flowerpiercers got their name from the fact that they have a sharp hook on the tip of their upper mandible which they use to slice open the base of flowers to get at the nectar.
Taxonomy
The masked flowerpiercer was formally described in 1840 by the French ornithologist Frédéric de Lafresnaye based on a specimen collected by Auguste Boissonneau near Santa Fe, Bogotá in Colombia. Lafresnaye coined the binomial name Uncirostrum cyaneum. The masked flowerpiercer is now one of 18 flowerpiercers placed in the genus Diglossa that was introduced in 1832 by the German naturalist Johann Georg Wagler.
Five subspecies are recognised:
D. c. obscura Phelps, WH & Phelps, WH Jr, 1952 – northwest Venezuela
D. c. tovarensis Zimmer, JT & Phelps, WH, 1952 – north Venezuela
D. c. cyanea (Lafresnaye, 1840) – west Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador (except southwest)
D. c. dispar Zimmer, JT, 1942 – southwest Ecuador and northwest Peru
D. c. melanopis Tschudi, 1844 – Peru to central Bolivia
