It is found in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

[7] The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the French ornithologist Emmanuel Canivet de Carentan.

The tail is long and forked, blue-black or black with a blue gloss, and the central two or three pairs of feathers have dark brownish gray tips.

C. c. salvini males are also similar to the nominate, but have a dusky rather than red maxilla and dark sooty gray tips on the central tail feathers.

[7] The nominate subspecies of Canivet's emerald is found in eastern Mexico from Tamaulipas to Yucatán and beyond through Belize and northern Guatemala into Honduras (including its offshore islands).

[7] Canivet's emerald forages for nectar by trap-lining, visiting a circuit of flowering plants and not defending a feeding territory.

What is thought to be the Canivet's emerald song is "an endlessly repeated, characterless wiry tseee tseeree".

Its call has been described as "a dry, scratchy chut or chit, sometimes run together into a soft, staccato chatter"[7] The IUCN has assessed Canivet's emerald as being of Least Concern.

[1] "Human activity probably has little short term effect on Canivet's Emerald, which occupies edge and disturbed habitats, including gardens.