Plume-toed swiftlet
Species of bird
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The plume-toed swiftlet (Collocalia affinis) is a small bird in the swift family Apodidae. It is found on some eastern Indian Ocean islands, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and lowland Borneo.
| Plume-toed swiftlet | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Clade: | Strisores |
| Order: | Apodiformes |
| Family: | Apodidae |
| Genus: | Collocalia |
| Species: | C. affinis |
| Binomial name | |
| Collocalia affinis Beavan, 1867 | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Collocalia esculenta affinis | |
Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It was previously considered a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet.
Taxonomy
The plume-toed swiftlet was described by the English ornithologist Robert Cecil Beavan in 1867 and given current binomial name Collocalia affinis. The type locality is Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.[1][2] The specific epithet affinis is Latin for "related" or "applied".[3] The plume-toed swiftlet was previously treated as a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet but was promoted to species status based on the results of a detailed analysis of the swiftlets in the genus Collocalia published in 2017.[4][5]
There are five subspecies:[5]
- C. a. affinis Beavan, 1867 – Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean
- C. a. elachyptera Oberholser, 1906 – Mergui Archipelago off the west coast of southern Myanmar
- C. a. vanderbilti Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee & Ripley, 1940 – Nias Island off the west coast of Sumatra
- C. a. oberholseri Stresemann, 1912 – Batu and Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra
- C. a. cyanoptila Oberholser, 1906 – Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Natuna Islands and lowland Borneo
Description
The plume-toed swiftlet is 9–10 cm (3.5–3.9 in) in length with a square tail.[6] The back and upper surface of the wings are uniformly dark greenish-blue with a moderate gloss. The throat and upper breast are dark grey merging into large greyish chevrons over the lower breast and flanks, usually becoming white over the belly. There is a tuft of small feathers on the hallux, the rear facing toe. This species lacks a pale contrasting rump and has no white spots on the inner webs of the tail feathers.[4]
