The forest swallow (''Atronanus fuliginosus'') is a little-known species of swallow in the family Hirundinidae, found in

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...

Equatorial Guinea Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

, and

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. The species was previously placed in the genus ''

Petrochelidon ''Petrochelidon'' is a genus of birds known as cliff-nesting swallows. The genus name ''Petrochelidon'' is from the Ancient Greek words ''petros'', "rock", and ''khelidon'', "swallow". The genus includes all of the five species of birds commonly ...

'', within the ‘mud-nester’ clade of swallows, yet its plumage, morphology, and nesting behavior did not align well with those of other major swallow lineages. As a consequence, and also employing molecular phylogenetic approaches, De Silva et al. (2018) placed this species in the swallow phylogenetic tree, firmly within the ‘mud nester’ clade, but outside of the clade corresponding to ''Petrochelidon''. This outcome led De Silva et al. (2018) to document and describe formally a distinct, generic-level lineage of swallow endemic to the Lower Guinean forest region of central Africa. De Silva et al. (2018) proposed to recognize the distinctiveness of this taxon at the generic level. This species was originally described in the genus ''Lecythoplastes'' ( Chapin, 1925) with Preuss's cliff swallow ''Petrochelidon preussi''. ''Lecythoplastes'' had been proposed originally based on ''preussi'' as a type species by

Reichenow Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He was ...

(1898), and ''preussi'' falls firmly within ''Petrochelidon'' in all of their phylogenetic analyses. As such, ''Lecythoplastes'' must remain submerged in ''Petrochelidon''; therefore De Silva et al. erected a new genus, ''Atronanus'', comprising the monotypic forest swallow.

References

Monotypic bird genera forest swallow Birds of Central Africa forest swallow forest swallow Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Hirundinidae-stub