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Hirundapus
''Hirundapus'' is a genus of swifts in the family Apodidae. The name ''Hirundapus'' is constructed from the names of the swallow genus ''Hirundo'' and the swift genus ''Apus''. It contains the following species: * White-throated needletail (''Hirundapus caudacutus'') * Purple needletail (''Hirundapus celebensis'') * Silver-backed needletail (''Hirundapus cochinchinensis'') * Brown-backed needletail The brown-backed needletail (''Hirundapus giganteus''), or brown needletail, is a large swift. These birds have very short legs which they use only mainly for clinging to vertical surfaces. They never settle voluntarily on the ground and spend m ... (''Hirundapus giganteus'') References Bird genera Taxa named by Brian Houghton Hodgson Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{apodiformes-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White-throated Needletail
The white-throated needletail (''Hirundapus caudacutus''), also known as needle-tailed swift or spine-tailed swift, is a large swift in the genus Hirundapus. It is reputed to reach speeds of up to 170 km/h (105 mph) in horizontal flight, but this is unverified because the methods used to measure its speed have not been published. They build their nests in rock crevices in cliffs or hollow trees. They do not like to sit on the ground and spend most of their time in the air. They feed on small, flying insects like beetles, flies, bees and moths. The white-throated needletail is a migratory bird, breeding in Central Asia and southern Siberia, and wintering south in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australia. It is a rare vagrant in Western Europe and has been recorded as far west as Norway, Sweden and Great Britain. In June 2013, an individual was spotted in Great Britain for the first time in 22 years. It later flew into a wind turbine and died; its body was sent to a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hirundapus
''Hirundapus'' is a genus of swifts in the family Apodidae. The name ''Hirundapus'' is constructed from the names of the swallow genus ''Hirundo'' and the swift genus ''Apus''. It contains the following species: * White-throated needletail (''Hirundapus caudacutus'') * Purple needletail (''Hirundapus celebensis'') * Silver-backed needletail (''Hirundapus cochinchinensis'') * Brown-backed needletail The brown-backed needletail (''Hirundapus giganteus''), or brown needletail, is a large swift. These birds have very short legs which they use only mainly for clinging to vertical surfaces. They never settle voluntarily on the ground and spend m ... (''Hirundapus giganteus'') References Bird genera Taxa named by Brian Houghton Hodgson Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{apodiformes-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brown-backed Needletail
The brown-backed needletail (''Hirundapus giganteus''), or brown needletail, is a large swift. These birds have very short legs which they use only mainly for clinging to vertical surfaces. They never settle voluntarily on the ground and spend most of their lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in their beaks. These swifts are resident breeders in hill forests in southern Asia from India east to Indonesia and the Philippines. They build their nests in rock crevices in cliffs, laying 3-5 eggs. The flight is impressively fast, even compared to other swifts. The brown-backed needletail is a very large swift, and at 23 cm is bigger than the Alpine swift and the white-throated needletail. It has a similar build to the latter species, with a heavy barrel-like body. They are dark brown except for a white undertail, which extends on to the flanks. The ''Hirundapus'' needletailed swifts get their name from the spined ends of their tail, which is not forked as in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Purple Needletail
The purple needletail (''Hirundapus celebensis''), or ''hagibas'' in Tagalog, is the largest swift found in the Old World. It is native to the Philippine archipelago and the Minahasa Peninsula (Sulawesi). This bird lives in various forests and open country. They may found in the lowlands or in hills, from high in elevation. These are huge swifts, measuring on average about long and weighing from , with an average of in one study of 22 unsexed adult birds. The wingspan can range up to , with a wing chord length of .http://www.pprune.org/www.me.gatech.edu/hu/Fluids/HW1.pdf Only the white-naped swift rival this species for size and averages less than this needletail.''CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses, 2nd Edition'' by John B. Dunning Jr. (Editor). CRC Press (2008), . The overall plumage is mostly uniform blackish, with a whitish loral marking. This species has the large size, white horseshoe-shaped underside-marking, and the subtly-needled tail typical of the needletails. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver-backed Needletail
The silver-backed needletail (''Hirundapus cochinchinensis'') is a species of swift in the family Apodidae. It is found in Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Java and Taiwan. It is a vagrant to Christmas Island. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...s. References silver-backed needletail Birds of Nepal Birds of Northeast India Birds of Hainan Birds of Taiwan Birds of Southeast Asia silver-backed needletail Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{apodiformes-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swift (bird)
The swifts are a family, Apodidae, of highly aerial birds. They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes with hummingbirds. The treeswifts are closely related to the true swifts, but form a separate family, the Hemiprocnidae. Resemblances between swifts and swallows are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar life styles based on catching insects in flight. The family name, Apodidae, is derived from the Greek ἄπους (''ápous''), meaning "footless", a reference to the small, weak legs of these most aerial of birds.Jobling (2010) pp. 50–51.Kaufman (2001) p. 329. The tradition of depicting swifts without feet continued into the Middle Ages, as seen in the heraldic martlet. Taxonomy Taxonomists have long classified swifts and treeswifts as relatives of the hummingbirds, a judgment corroborated by the discovery of the Jungornithidae (apparently swift-like hummingbird-relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apodidae
The swifts are a family, Apodidae, of highly aerial birds. They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes with hummingbirds. The treeswifts are closely related to the true swifts, but form a separate family, the Hemiprocnidae. Resemblances between swifts and swallows are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar life styles based on catching insects in flight. The family name, Apodidae, is derived from the Greek ἄπους (''ápous''), meaning "footless", a reference to the small, weak legs of these most aerial of birds.Jobling (2010) pp. 50–51.Kaufman (2001) p. 329. The tradition of depicting swifts without feet continued into the Middle Ages, as seen in the heraldic martlet. Taxonomy Taxonomists have long classified swifts and treeswifts as relatives of the hummingbirds, a judgment corroborated by the discovery of the Jungornithidae (apparently swift-like hummingbird-relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Houghton Hodgson
Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals from the Himalayas, and several birds were named after him by others such as Edward Blyth. He was a scholar of Newar Buddhism and wrote extensively on a range of topics relating to linguistics and religion. He was an opponent of the British proposal to introduce English as the official medium of instruction in Indian schools. Early life Hodgson was the second of seven children of Brian Hodgson (1766–1858) and his wife Catherine (1776–1851), and was born at Lower Beech, Prestbury, Cheshire. His father lost money in a bad bank investment and had to sell their home at Lower Beech. A great-aunt married to Beilby Porteus, the Bishop of London, helped them but the financial difficulties were great. Hodgson's father worked as a warden of the Martello towe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swallow
The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The term "swallow" is used colloquially in Europe as a synonym for the barn swallow. Around 90 species of Hirundinidae are known, divided into 19 genus, genera, with the greatest diversity found in Africa, which is also thought to be where they evolved as hole-nesters. They also occur on a number of oceanic islands. A number of European and North American species are long-distance bird migration, migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are nonmigratory. This family comprises two subfamilies: Pseudochelidoninae (the river martins of the genus ''Pseudochelidon'') and Hirundininae (all other swallows, martins, and saw-wings). In the Old World, the name "martin" tends to be used for the squarer-tailed species, and the name "swal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hirundo
The bird genus ''Hirundo'' is a group of passerines in the family Hirundinidae (swallows and martins). The genus name is Latin for a swallow. These are the typical swallows, including the widespread barn swallow. Many of this group have blue backs, red on the face and sometimes the rump or nape, and whitish or rufous underparts. With fifteen species this genus is the largest in its family. Taxonomy The genus ''Hirundo'' was introduced in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae''. The genus name is the Latin word for a swallow. Linnaeus included eight species in the genus and of these William Swainson designated the barn swallow (''Hirundo rustica'') as the type species. Extant species The genus contains fifteen species. The linear sequence is based on two molecular phylogenetic studies published in 2005 and 2018. Extinct species There are at least two fossil species included in this genus: *†''Hirundo gracilis'' (late Mioce ... [...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] |
Bird Genera
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. Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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