chiltotopil.

CHĪL-TOTOPIL, literally, “little red bird,” Red Warbler (Ergaticus ruber) [FC: 48 Chiltotopil] “It is the same as the [Tlapaltototl]…. It has no blood; its blood is only like serous fluid.” This description is opaque, but might be intended to suggest small size. Martin del Campo identified it as the Red Warbler. The Historia General, Martin del Campo’s source, elaborated to the effect that Chiltototl was red like Tlapaltototl, which Martin del Campo identified as the Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus ruber). Both are conspicuously bright, if diminutive, red birds. I agree that this bird is most likely the Red Warbler. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 11 – Earthly Things, no. 14, Part XII, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1963); Rafael Martín del Campo, “Ensayo de interpretación del Libro Undecimo de la Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún – 11 Las Aves (1),” Anales del Instituto de Biología Tomo XI, Núm. 1 (México, D.F., 1940); Josefina García Quintana and Alfredo López Austin. Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (Alianza Editorial Mexicana, Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, México, D.F., 1988); and, with quotation selections, synthesis, and analysis here also appearing in E. S. Hunn, "The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering Sixteenth-Century Sources," unpublished manuscript, 2022, cited here with permission.

See a painting of this bird on line in the Digital Florentine Codex:
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 11: Earthly Things", fol. 51v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/11/folio/51v/images/9d1691cf-a... Accessed 18 October 2025.