The Garnet-throated Hummingbird is a handsome and distinctive hummingbird of high-elevation forests from central Mexico through northern Central America. The male's pink throat, violet breast, black cheeks, and green upperparts form a bright harlequin pattern, and the rufous in its wings is particularly obvious in flight. The female is gray below, but retains the rufous wing patches and has a bold white postocular stripe. It occurs both in pine-oak and cloud forest, particularly at edges and in undergrowth. It feeds on nectar and aerial arthropods and places its cup nest in a washed-out bank along a mountain stream.