Like many other sunbirds, brown-throated sunbirds are small, brightly coloured and sexually dimorphic birds with curved beaks adapted to drinking nectar from flowers. Male brown-throated sunbirds are particularly remarkable, with iridescent green, blue and purple upperparts, a brown throat and a bright yellow belly. In contrast, female brown-throated sunbirds are much less brightly coloured, with uniform yellow undersides, olive upperparts, a broad yellow eye-ring and a relatively straight bill. Like many other sunbirds as well, the brown-throated sunbird is often mistaken for a hummingbird due to its small size, bright colouration, curved beak and limited ability to hover, though it must be noted that hummingbirds are only found in the Americas (i.e. the New World) and are from a completely different order altogether (Order: Apodiformes).