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The pygmy tyrants are a bird genus, Myiornis, in the Tyrannidae family. Discounting the hummingbirds, they are some of the smallest birds in the world.
The following species are contained in Myiornis:
- White-bellied Pygmy Tyrant (Myiornis albiventris);
- Eared Pygmy Tyrant (Myiornis auricularis);
- Black-capped Pygmy Tyrant (Myiornis atricapillus);
- Short-tailed Pygmy Tyrant (Myiornis ecaudatus).
Famous quotes containing the words pygmy and/or tyrant:
“Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)