The southern rough-winged swallow (''Stelgidopteryx ruficollis'') is a small

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 ...

. It was first formally described as ''

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 bac ...

ruficollis'' by French ornithologist Louis Vieillot in 1817 in his ''Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle''.

Morphology

The adult is in length and weighs . It is brown above, with blackish wings and tail and a pale grey rump. The throat and upper breast are rufous with the lower underparts yellowish-white. The tail is slightly forked. It is similar in appearance to its northern counterpart, the

northern rough-winged swallow The northern rough-winged swallow (''Stelgidopteryx serripennis'') is a small, migratory swallow. It is very similar to the southern rough-winged swallow, ''Stelgidopteryx ruficollis''. Taxonomy and etymology The genus name, ''Stelgidopteryx'' ...

, but is more uniform in color, particularly on the rump. "Rough-winged" refers to the serrated edge of the outer primary

feathers Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and a premier ...

on the wing of this bird; this feature would only be apparent when holding this bird.

Distribution

It occurs in Central and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

from Honduras south to northern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. It also occurs on

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. Southern birds of the nominate race ''S. r. ruficollis'', are migratory, moving north in winter, but the northern ''S. r. aequalis'' is sedentary.

Ecology

It is found in open areas and

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' ...

clearings. It nests in grass-lined cavities of various types, including holes in banks or walls, or disused

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

and

jacamar The jacamars are a family, Galbulidae, of near passerine birds from tropical South and Central America, extending up to Mexico. The family contains five genera and 18 species. The family is closely related to the puffbirds, another Neotropical f ...

nests A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of organic materi ...

. It does not form

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

. The clutch is 3–6 white

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

, incubated by the female for 16–18 days and with another 13 days to fledging. Southern rough-winged swallows forage for

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s (such as

plant bug The Miridae are a large and diverse insect family at one time known by the taxonomic synonym Capsidae. Species in the family may be referred to as capsid bugs or "mirid bugs". Common names include plant bugs, leaf bugs, and grass bugs. It is the ...

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

flies Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced m ...

, flying

ant Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of ...

s and heteropterans)https://sta.uwi.edu/fst/lifesciences/sites/default/files/lifesciences/documents/ogatt/Stelgidopteryx_ruficollis%20-%20Southern%20Rough-winged%20Swallow.pdf in flight, usually flying low with a slow deliberate flight. The call is an unmusical ''chirrup''.Alternate Link
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References

External links

* * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q2718656

southern rough-winged swallow The southern rough-winged swallow (''Stelgidopteryx ruficollis'') is a small swallow. It was first formally described as ''Hirundo ruficollis'' by French ornithologist Louis Vieillot in 1817 in his ''Nouveau Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle'' ...

Birds of Costa Rica Birds of Honduras Birds of Nicaragua Birds of Panama Birds of South America Birds of the Guianas Birds of the Amazon Basin Birds of Trinidad and Tobago Birds of islands of the Atlantic Ocean

Morphology

Distribution

Ecology

References

Further reading

External links