You've probably seen a flash of iridescent green at a backyard feeder and wondered what exactly you were looking at. Was it a Ruby-throated? A Broad-tailed? Maybe a stray Rufous passing through on a marathon migration? If you start digging into the data, you’ll find that the question of how many different kinds of hummingbirds are there isn't as simple as checking a single box.
Taxonomy is messy. Nature doesn't always play by our rules of categorization.
Currently, the scientific community—specifically groups like the International Ornithologists' Union (IOU)—recognizes roughly 360 to 365 distinct species of hummingbirds. That number fluctuates. Why? Because we are constantly "splitting" and "lumping" species based on new DNA evidence. One year, two birds are considered the same species with different plumage; the next year, a genomic study proves they haven't interbred for a million years. Boom. New species.
Where do all these birds actually live?
Every single one of them is in the Americas. You won't find a single native hummingbird in Europe, Asia, or Africa. They are a New World phenomenon. While we mostly see about a dozen or so species regularly in the United States, the real "engine room" of hummingbird diversity is the Andes Mountains in South America.
Ecuador is basically the hummingbird capital of the world. It’s tiny, yet it hosts over 130 species. Think about that for a second. In a country roughly the size of Colorado, you have nearly triple the variety of hummingbirds found in the entire North American continent.
The reason is the verticality.
In the Andes, you can travel a few miles horizontally but thousands of feet vertically. Each "island" of elevation creates a unique microclimate. A hummingbird adapted to the thin, cold air of the paramo (high-altitude grasslands) can't survive in the humid lowland rainforest, and vice versa. This isolation is a recipe for evolution. It's how you end up with birds like the Sword-billed Hummingbird, the only bird in the world with a beak longer than its body. It evolved that ridiculous bill specifically to reach the nectar inside long, tubular Passiflora flowers. It’s a specialized arms race.
The big families and tiny outliers
When people ask about how many different kinds of hummingbirds are there, they’re usually thinking of colors and shapes. Ornithologists, however, group them into nine major "clades" or lineages.
- Topazes and Jacobins: These are some of the most ancient lineages.
- Hermits: These guys look different. They aren't usually iridescent. They have long, curved bills and spend their time in the deep shade of the forest floor, "traplining" (visiting flowers in a specific circuit) rather than defending a single feeder.
- Mangoes: Large, bold, and often found in tropical gardens.
- Brilliants: Exactly what they sound like. High-shine feathers.
- Coquettes: These are the tiny, "fancy" ones with crests and cheek tufts.
- Patagona: This clade contains only one bird—the Giant Hummingbird. It’s about the size of a starling. Compared to the rest of the family, it’s a monster.
- Mountain Gems: Common in the mountains of Central America.
- Bees: This includes the world's smallest bird, the Bee Hummingbird of Cuba. It weighs less than a penny.
- Emeralds: The largest group, containing many of the common green "backyard" hummingbirds we recognize.
Honestly, the variation is staggering. You have the Marvelous Spatuletail, which has only four tail feathers, two of which end in giant purple "spatules" that the male waves around like flags during a dance. Then you have the Black-hooded Sunbeam, which looks like a drab brown bird until the light hits its back and it turns into a glowing sheet of gold and copper.
Why the numbers keep shifting
We used to define a "kind" of hummingbird by how it looked. If it had a red throat and lived in the Eastern US, it was a Ruby-throated. Simple.
But modern science has moved past the "eye test." Ornithologists like Dr. Christopher Witt at the University of New Mexico have spent years looking at how these birds handle oxygen at high altitudes. They’ve found that birds which look identical might have completely different hemoglobin structures, meaning they are physiologically distinct species that don't interbreed.
Then there’s the issue of hybrids. Hummingbirds are notoriously... promiscuous. A Broad-tailed and a Black-chinned might mate and produce an offspring that looks like a completely new species. Early naturalists often shot these hybrids, gave them a name, and added them to the list, only for modern scientists to realize 100 years later that "Species X" was just a one-off mistake.
The North American Reality
If you live in the US or Canada, your experience with the question of how many different kinds of hummingbirds are there is a bit limited compared to the tropics.
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- East of the Mississippi: You basically have the Ruby-throated. That’s it. Occasionally a Rufous will get lost and end up in Florida during the winter, but for the most part, you’re looking at a monoculture.
- The West: This is where it gets fun. In Arizona, California, and Texas, you can see upwards of 15-18 species depending on the time of year. The Anna’s Hummingbird is a permanent resident along the West Coast, even staying through snowy winters in Vancouver. The Rufous is the most aggressive, a tiny orange ball of fury that migrates from Mexico all the way to Alaska.
Most people don't realize that hummingbirds are actually quite hardy. They can enter a state called torpor at night, where they drop their body temperature and slow their heart rate to almost nothing to conserve energy. Without this, a bird with a metabolism that high would starve to death before sunrise.
How to spot the differences yourself
If you want to contribute to the count, you have to look at more than just color. Lighting is a liar. A hummingbird’s colors are structural—they come from the way light bounces off microscopic platelets in the feathers, not from pigment. A bird that looks black one second can flash neon pink the next.
Instead, look at:
- The Bill: Is it straight, slightly decurved, or heavily hooked?
- The Tail: Is it forked, square, or does it have long streamers?
- The Sound: This is the pro tip. A Broad-tailed hummingbird’s wings make a metallic "trilling" sound. A Black-chinned's wings make a low "hum." Often, you’ll hear what kind of hummingbird it is before you see it.
The most accurate "current" list is maintained by the American Ornithological Society (AOS) for North and Middle America. They update their checklist every summer. If you're looking for the global count, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and their eBird project are the gold standards. They use "citizen science," meaning every time you log a sighting, you’re helping refine the data on where these 360+ species are moving.
What you can do to help hummingbird diversity
Knowing how many different kinds of hummingbirds are there is one thing; keeping them around is another. Habitat loss is the biggest threat. Because many species are "specialists"—meaning they only drink from one or two specific types of flowers in a tiny geographic area—they are incredibly vulnerable to climate change and deforestation.
To support the species in your area:
- Plant native. Skip the "wildflower mix" from the hardware store; it's often full of invasive weeds. Find out what tubular flowers are native to your specific zip code.
- Clean your feeders. If you use sugar water (4 parts water to 1 part white sugar—never honey or red dye), you must change it every 2-3 days. In the heat, it ferments and grows a fungus that can kill birds.
- Keep cats indoors. It's a hard truth, but domestic cats are a leading cause of bird mortality. A hummingbird at a feeder is a sitting duck.
- Avoid pesticides. Hummingbirds don't just eat nectar; they need protein. They eat thousands of tiny gnats and spiders. If you poison the bugs, you poison the birds.
By focusing on local biodiversity, you’re helping ensure that the global count of 360+ species doesn't start shrinking. The diversity of these birds is a testament to millions of years of evolutionary creativity. Every time a new species is "split" or discovered in a remote valley in Peru, it reminds us how much of the natural world we still haven't fully mapped out.
Actionable Insight: Download the Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It’s free and uses AI to identify hummingbird species through your phone’s camera or by the sound of their wings and chirps. Next time you see a "weird" bird at your feeder, you can contribute directly to the global database used by scientists to track species health and migration patterns.