Mellisuga minima
Silhouette: Steven Traver · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
The vervain hummingbird (Mellisuga minima) is a species of hummingbird in tribe Mellisugini of subfamily Trochilinae, the "bee hummingbirds". It is found on Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Jamaica.
The vervain hummingbird was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Trochilus minimus. Linnaeus based his description on a bird that had been described and illustrated in 1747 by the English naturalist George Edwards. The type locality is Jamaica. The vervain hummingbird is now placed together with the tiny Cuban bee hummingbird in the genus Mellisuga that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.
The vervain hummingbird is perhaps the second-smallest bird in the world after the smallest, the bee hummingbird, though some other tiny ones are close to it in size. It is about 6 cm (2.4 in) long, including the 1 cm (0.39 in) bill, and weighs about 2 to 2.4 g (0... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park | 🇯🇲 Jamaica | |
| 2 | Los Haitises National Park | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic | |
| 3 | Jaragua National Park | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Santo Domingo | 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Vervain Hummingbird sighting in Jaragua National Park on a given day, based on 36 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 41st most-seen of the 92 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December to April
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Vervain Hummingbird in Jaragua National Park on a given day, against about 10% in May and October–November, the lowest months. Those are among Jaragua National Park's driest months, with about 30 mm of rain a month against 120 mm in October. June to September have too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Vervain Hummingbird sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
3rd of 3
Of the 3 parks where we can rate Vervain Hummingbird sightings, Jaragua National Park ranks 3rd at about 20%. The best odds are in Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park (Jamaica, about 40%) and Los Haitises National Park (Dominican Republic, about 30%).
Same family: Trochilidae
The closest relatives of the Vervain Hummingbird that you can see in Jaragua National Park (family Trochilidae, Hummingbirds) are Antillean Mango (about 40%) and Hispaniolan Emerald (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Vervain Hummingbird is recorded against all the birds logged in Jaragua National Park (36 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
