Treeswifts or crested swifts are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

, the Hemiprocnidae, of aerial

near passerine Near passerines and higher land-bird assemblage are terms of traditional, pre-cladistic taxonomy that have often been given to tree-dwelling birds or those most often believed to be related to the true passerines (order Passeriformes) owing to mor ...

bird 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 lightweig ...

s, closely related to the true swifts. The family contains a single

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

, ''Hemiprocne'', with four species. They are distributed from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

through

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New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

and the

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. Treeswifts are small to medium-sized swifts, ranging in length from 15 to 30 cm. They have long wings, with most of the length coming from the length of the

primaries Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the c ...

; their arms are actually quite short. They visibly differ from the other swifts in matters of plumage, which is softer, and they have crests or other facial ornaments, and long, forked tails. Anatomically they are separated from the true swifts by skeletal details in the cranium and palate, the anatomy of the tarsus, and a nonreversible hind toe that is used for perching on branches (an activity in which true swifts are unable to engage). The males have iridescent mantle plumage. They also have diastataxic wings, that is they lack a fifth secondary feather unlike swifts in the Apodini, which are eutaxic. Moustached Treeswift (Hemiprocne mystacea)

Moustached Treeswift (Hemiprocne mystacea)

The treeswifts exhibit a wide range of habitat preferences. One species, the

whiskered treeswift The whiskered treeswift (''Hemiprocne comata'') is a species of bird in the family Hemiprocnidae. It is the smallest of 4 species in genus ''Hemiprocne'' and is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thail ...

, is a species belonging to

primary forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological feature ...

. Highly manoeuvrable, it feeds close to vegetation beneath the canopy, and only rarely ventures into secondary forests or plantations, but never over open ground. Other species are less restricted; the

crested treeswift The crested treeswift (''Hemiprocne coronata'') is a species of tree swift. It was for some time considered the same species as its eastern relative, the gray-rumped treeswift (''Hemiprocne longipennis''), but they do not interbreed where their ...

makes use of a range of habitats including humid forests and deciduous woodland, and the

grey-rumped treeswift The grey-rumped treeswift (''Hemiprocne longipennis'') is a species of bird in the Hemiprocnidae family. Currently, four extant species are placed in the family. Like the other members of the Hemiprocnidae, this species is closely related to t ...

occupies almost every habitat type available from the

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

forests to hill forests. All species feed on insects, although exact details of what prey are taken has not been studied in detail. Nest-building responsibilities are shared by the male and female. They lay one

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

in the nest, which is glued to an open tree branch. Egg colour varies from white to grey. Little information is available about incubation times, but they are thought to be longer for the larger species. Chicks hatch with a covering of grey down and are fed a bolus of regurgitated food by the parents.

Species

Crested treeswift The crested treeswift (''Hemiprocne coronata'') is a species of tree swift. It was for some time considered the same species as its eastern relative, the gray-rumped treeswift (''Hemiprocne longipennis''), but they do not interbreed where their ...

, ''H. coronata'' *

Grey-rumped treeswift The grey-rumped treeswift (''Hemiprocne longipennis'') is a species of bird in the Hemiprocnidae family. Currently, four extant species are placed in the family. Like the other members of the Hemiprocnidae, this species is closely related to t ...

, ''H. longipennis'' *

Whiskered treeswift The whiskered treeswift (''Hemiprocne comata'') is a species of bird in the family Hemiprocnidae. It is the smallest of 4 species in genus ''Hemiprocne'' and is found in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thail ...

, ''H. comata'' *

Moustached treeswift The moustached treeswift (''Hemiprocne mystacea'') is a species of bird in the family Hemiprocnidae. It is found in the northern Moluccas, New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, Bismarck and the Solomon Islands (archipelago), Solomon Islands archipela ...

, ''H. mystacea''

Species

References

Further reading