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Bates's Swift
Bates's swift (''Apus batesi'') is a species of small swift in the family Apodidae which is found in western Africa. Description Bates's swift is a small, slender swift with a deeply forked tail which is often held closed to form a point. It has a glossy black plumage with an indistinct pale patch on the throat. It is normally silent but makes a high-pitched trill near the nest. They are 14 cm in length. Distribution Bates's swift is found from Liberia and Guinea then patchily eastwards to Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, south to Gabon and the northern Congo. Its presence in Sierra Leone is unconfirmed, as are reports from the eastern democratic Republic of Congo. Habitat Bates's swift is a rainforest species and is found in areas close to cliffs and crags. Habits Bates's swift forages above the canopy of the rainforest using a fluttering flight, with short periods of gliding occasionally interrupting the rapid wing beats. It may be seen singly, or in small flocks and in mixe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bowdler Sharpe
Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several monographs on bird groups and produced a multi-volume catalogue of the specimens in the collection of the museum. He described many new species of bird and also has had species named in his honour by other ornithologists including Sharpe's longclaw (''Macronyx sharpei'') and Sharpe's starling (''Poeoptera sharpii''). Biography Richard was born in London, the first son of Thomas Bowdler Sharpe. His grandfather, Reverend Lancelot Sharpe was Rector of All Hallows Staining. His father was a publisher on Skinner Street and was best known for being the publisher of ''Sharpe's London Magazine'', an illustrated periodical (weekly but monthly from 1847). His care from the age of six was under an aunt, Magdalen Wallace, widow of the headmaster at Gramm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesser Striped Swallow
The lesser striped swallow (''Cecropis abyssinica'') is a large swallow. It breeds in Sub-Saharan Africa from Sierra Leone and southern Sudan south into eastern South Africa. It is partially migratory with South African birds wintering further north. West African birds leave the north of the breeding range in the dry season. Habitat This is a bird of wooded, mainly lowland habitats. The lesser striped swallow prefers less open habitats, and is replaced in montane grassland by the greater striped swallow, ''Hirundo cucullata''. It is common and often found around human habitation. Description The lesser striped swallow is 15–10 cm long. It has dark blue upperparts with a red rump and a rufous-chestnut crown, nape and sides of the head. The underparts are white with dark streaking, and the upper wings and underwing flight feathers are blackish-brown. The underwing coverts are tawny. The blackish tail has very long outer feathers; these are slightly longer in the male than t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Of West Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the Common ostrich, ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birds Of Central Africa
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apus (genus)
The bird genus ''Apus'' comprise some of the Old World members of the family Apodidae, commonly known as swifts. They are among the fastest birds in the world. They resemble swallows, to which they are not related, but have shorter tails and sickle-shaped wings. Swifts spend most of their life aloft, have very short legs and use them mostly to cling to surfaces. Taxonomy The genus ''Apus'' was erected by the Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1777 based on tautonymy and the common swift which had been given the binomial name ''Hirundo apus'' by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The name ''Apus'' is Latin for a swift, thought by the ancients to be a type of swallow with no feet (from Ancient Greek α, ''a'', "without", and πούς, ''pous'', "foot"). Before the 1950s, there was some controversy over which group of organism should have the genus name ''Apus''. In 1801, Bosc gave the small crustacean organisms, known today as ''Triops,'' the genus nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo, as well as Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ( United Kingdom Overseas Territory).Paul R. Masson, Catherine Anne Pattillo, "Monetary union in West Africa (ECOWAS): is it desirable and how could it be achieved?" (Introduction). International Monetary Fund, 2001. The population of West Africa is estimated at about million people as of , and at 381,981,000 as of 2017, of which 189,672,000 are female and 192,309,000 male. The region is demographically and economically one of the fastest growing on the African continent. Early history in West Africa included a number of prominent regional powers that dominated different parts of both the coastal and internal trade networks, suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Latimer Bates
George Latimer Bates (March 21, 1863, Abingdon, Illinois US – January 31, 1940 Chelmsford UK), LL.D., M.B.O.U. was an American naturalist. Bates studied at Knox College, Galesburg and at the Chicago Theological Seminary and in 1895 visited West Africa and lived in the south east Cameroon, making a living by farming. He collected natural history specimens in his travels and sent many of these to the Natural History Museum in London. In 1928 Bates moved to England and wrote a ''Handbook on the Birds of West Africa'' (1930). He learned Arabic and visited Arabia in 1934 and studied the ornithology of Arabia. He was unable to publish the work but wrote several papers on Arabian birds for the ''Ibis''. His unpublished manuscript on the ''Birds of Arabia'' was later used by Richard Meinertzhagen. Legacy A species of African snake, ''Rhamnophis batesii'', is named in his honor,Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Swift
The little swift (''Apus affinis''), is a small species of swift found in Africa and southwestern Asia, and are vagrants and local breeders in southern Europe. They are found both in urban areas and at rocky cliffs where they build nests in a way typical of all members of the order Apodiformes. The genus name ''Apus'' is Latin for a swift, thought by the ancients to be a type of swallow without feet (from Ancient Greek α, ''a'', "without", and πούς, ''pous'', "foot"). The Latin specific ''affinis'' means similar to or related to, but in this case the species that the little swift supposedly resembles is not clear from the description. A population formerly considered to be an eastern subspecies of little swift is now separated as a distinct species, the house swift ( ''Apus nipalensis''). Description Little swifts are readily identified by their small size. Their wingspan is only 33 cm compared to 42 cm in the case of common swift. Their plumage is black except for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Swift
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The house swift (''Apus nipalensis'') is a species of swift in the family Apodidae. It is found in Japan, Nepal, and Southeast Asia. It is capable of flying long distances by alternately shutting off hemispheres of their brain in-flight. In May 2012, one was discovered in Ladner, British Columbia, the first known sighting in North America. It was formerly considered a subspecies of the little swift. References External links BirdLife Species FactsheetBird Research - House Swift house swift Birds of Nepal Birds of Eastern Himalaya Birds of South China Birds of Taiwan Birds of Korea Birds of Japan Birds of Southeast Asia house swift The house swift (''Apus nipalensis'') is a species of swift in the family Apodidae. It is found in Japan, Nepal, and Southeast Asia. It is capable of flying long distances by alternately shutting off hemispheres of their brain in-flight. In May 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horus Swift
The Horus swift (''Apus horus'') is a small bird in the Swift (bird), swift family. Horus, whose name this bird commemorates, was the ancient Egyptian god of the sun, son of Osiris and Isis. Description The Horus swift is 13–15 cm long and quite bulky. It appears entirely blackish except for a white patch on the chin and a white rump. It has a medium length forked tail. It has a fluttering flight like little swift. Little swift has a square tail, and more extensive white on the rump than Horus, and white-rumped swift has a more deeply forked tail and a narrower white band. The call is a buzzing ''peeeeooo, peeeeooo''. The paler subspecies ''A. h. fuscobrunneus'' of southwestern Angola has a small grey throat patch and a brown rump. The form ''toulsoni'' of northwestern Angola and Zimbabwe is a dark morph of nominate ''A. h. horus'', with a dark rump and small throat patch. Both dark forms have sometimes been split as separate species. Distribution and habitat The swift br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-rumped Swift
The white-rumped swift (''Apus caffer'') is a species of swift. Although this small bird is superficially similar to a house martin, it is not closely related to that passerine species. The resemblances between the swallows and swifts are due to convergent evolution reflecting similar life styles. Description This 14–15.5 cm long species has, like some relatives, a short forked tail and long swept-back wings that resemble a crescent or a boomerang. It is entirely dark except for a pale throat patch and a narrow white rump. It is similar to the closely related little swift, but is slimmer, darker and has a more forked tail and a narrower white rump. Call This is a quiet species compared to little swift, but a twittering trill is sometimes given. Habits Like other swifts they have very short legs that they use only for clinging to vertical surfaces. They never settle voluntarily on the ground, and spend most of their lives in the air, feeding on insects that they catch in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, the equivalent Latin term ''cladus'' (plural ''cladi'') is often used in taxonomical literature. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, or a species (extinct or extant). Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed monophyletic (Greek: "one clan") groups. Over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades; that is, taxa that are not monophyletic. Some of the relationships between organisms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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