[citation needed] In 1743 the English naturalist George Edwards included a picture and a description of the white-necked jacobin in his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

Edwards based his etching on a specimen owned by the Duke of Richmond that had been collected in Suriname.

[4] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the white-necked jacobin with the other hummingbirds in the genus Trochilus.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Trochilus mellivorus and cited Edwards' work.

A white band on the nape separates the blue head from the bright green back and long uppertail coverts.

[9] The nominate subspecies of white-necked jacobin, F. m. mellivora, is found from southern Veracruz and northern Oaxaca, Mexico, through southern Belize, northern Guatemala, eastern Honduras and Nicaragua, eastern and western Costa Rica, and Panama into South America.

In that continent it is found in much of Colombia and Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern Bolivia, most of Venezuela, the Guianas, the northwestern half of Brazil, and the island of Trinidad.

[9] The white-necked jacobin feeds on nectar at the flowers of tall trees, epiphytes, shrubs, and Heliconia plants.

[9] The white-necked jacobin breeds in the dry to early wet seasons, which vary across their range.