The Reddish Hermit (Phaethornis ruber) is a species of bird in the Trochilidae family, the hummingbirds. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, and in the Guianas, of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. At 7.5 cm, its the smallest of the hermits. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical swamps, and heavily degraded former forest.

Distribution

Range in Amazon Basin, SE-Brazil

The majority of the Reddish Hermit's range, in northern and central South America, is the entire Amazon Basin to the foothill drainages of the eastern Andes slope. The Caribbean and Atlantic coasts of the entire Guianas are included in the northeast; in the southeast, the southeastern limit is the eastern banks of the Tocantins River in the Araguaia-Tocantins River system, usually included as part of the Amazon Basin. The countries included in the bird's range in the western Amazon Basin drainage are Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

Besides the Reddish Hermit's range in the Amazon Basin, to the northwest it is found in southern and eastern Venezuela adjacent to the Guianas; this is most of the eastern portions of Venezuela's Orinoco River drainage. A second large contiguous and disjunct range exists on the southeastern Atlantic coastal strip of Brazil, up to about 350 km wide, for about 4,500 km. The strip extends from northeastern states Rio Grande do Norte and Paraíba in the north, to southern São Paulo state. This coastal strip avoids most of the interior Cerrado region.