Hummingbird (ChocoEgg Series 6 by Furuta)

This miniature in the ChocoEgg Series 6 by Furuta is usually listed under the broad name “hummingbird”, so that’s how I’m listing it in the title here, but some websites specify it as the swallow-tailed hummingbird, Eupetomena macoura, a species of hummingbird from South America. However, since the figurine lacks many of the distinctive characteristics of that specific bird, not least a forked swallow-like tail, something is clearly amiss, and that’s why I was reluctant to adopt the specific name at face value.

To try and get to the bottom of this mystery I dug out the leaflet that came with the figure. Furuta is a Japanese company so all the text is in Japanese, and since I don’t speak Japanese I used a translation app to attempt to decode the text. My task was made all the more difficult by the minuscule font-size.

Firstly, the heading for the figurine translates to just “hummingbird”. This is true for the main paragraph describing the bird, as well as in a checklist of series 6 figurines overleaf. So far so good. Next there’s a subheading below the main “hummingbird” heading. The last part of this subheading, in brackets, consistently translated to “(Central and South America)”. But the first part translated to something different each time! One time it translated to “Swifts Hummingbirds”, the second time it translated to “Swallowtails Hummingbirds”, and on other attempts it translated to garbled family names, for example “Apertidae, Hummingridae”. As far as I can tell, no such families exist, although the swift family is Apodidae so perhaps it is a mis-spelling or mistranslation of that. Clearly, translation apps still have a long way to go before we can rely on them, so if any Japanese readers can provide a more accurate translation, please comment below!

So, while at least one translation of the leaflet is a close (but not identical) match for “swallow-tailed hummingbird”, and I think we can tentatively call it that, the binomial Eupetomena macoura does not appear on the leaflet. It seems possible that “swallow-tailed hummingbird” is a mistranslation of a broader common category name.

Irrespective of what the leaflet does or doesn’t say, what species of hummingbird is this supposed to represent, what species was the sculptor actually attempting to depict? Many hummingbirds have blue-green plumage so that’s not particularly helpful. The red bill with a black tip, and the relatively short fan-like tail in the figure, are very different from the swallow-tailed hummingbird, which has a longer forked tail and completely black bill.

Rather, the anatomy of the toy is closer to the broad-billed hummingbird, Cynanthus latirostris, which has a short tail and red bill with a black tip. This was suggested by forum member Isidro. This species resides in Mexico and the southwestern United States, so that doesn’t match the information on the leaflet, but I think its more likely the leaflet is describing the range of a different species, probably the swallow-tailed hummingbird. I’ve tagged this review with both names, but given the ambiguity I’ve stuck with just “hummingbird” for the title.

The figure is sculpted in a hovering pose supported by a very long and inclined splint-like blue base. The main prong of the base is in two parts that slot together, but they don’t fit nicely so mine appears slightly kinked.

The sculpting is rather crude and simplified, and and the joints where the different parts fit together are very obvious, a far cry from similar ‘Chocoegg/ChocoQ’ figures by Kaiyodo. Overall, this is one of the weaker figurines in Furuta’s ChocoEgg Series 6, further let down by the ambiguity surrounding its taxonomic identity.