Mascarene_swiftlet

Mascarene swiftlet

Mascarene swiftlet

Species of bird

The Mascarene swiftlet or Mauritius swiftlet (Aerodramus francicus) is a species of swift in the family Apodidae. It is found in Mauritius and Réunion, and the populations on the two islands have recently been confirmed to differ subspecifically. The nominate race francicus is found on Mauritius and the recently described race saffordi occurs on Réunion.[2] Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or tropical high-altitude shrubland, subtropical or tropical high-altitude grassland, caves, arable land, and heavily degraded former forest. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Cave nesting Mascarene Swiftlet
Nest of a Mascarene Swiftlet on a cave roof

Quick Facts Conservation status, Scientific classification ...

Taxonomy

The Mascarene swiftlet was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the swifts and swallows in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo francica.[3] Gmelin based his description on "La petite hirondelle noire à croupion gris" that had been described in 1779 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon from a specimen collected on the "Île de France" (Mauritius) in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.[4] A hand-coloured illustration was also published.[5] The Mascarene swiftlet is now placed with 27 other swiftlets in the genus Aerodramus that was introduced in 1906 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser.[6][7] The genus name combines the Ancient Greek aēr meaning "air" with -dromos meaning "-racer" (from trekhō "to run"). The specific epithet francicus signifies the "Île de France", the type locality.[8]

Two subspecies are recognised:[7]

  • A. f. francicus (Gmelin, JF, 1789) – Mauritius
  • A. f. saffordi Kirwan, Shirihai & Schweizer, 2018 – La Réunion

References

  1. [1]
    BirdLife International (2019). "Aerodramus francicus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2019: e.T22686511A154346114. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-3.RLTS.T22686511A154346114.en. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  2. [2]
    Kirwan, Guy M.; Shirihai, Hadoram; Schweizer, Manuel (2018). "A morphological revision of Mascarene Swiftlet Aerodramus francicus, with the description of a new subspecies from Reunion". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 138 (2): 117–130. doi:10.25226/bboc.v138i2.2018.a6.
  3. [3]
    Gmelin, Johann Friedrich (1789). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae : secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin). Vol. 1, Part 2 (13th ed.). Lipsiae [Leipzig]: Georg. Emanuel. Beer. p. 1017.
  4. [4]
    Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de (1779). "La petite hirondelle noire à croupion gris". Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux (in French). Vol. 6. Paris: De l'Imprimerie Royale. pp. 696–697.
  5. [5]
    Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de; Martinet, François-Nicolas; Daubenton, Edme-Louis; Daubenton, Louis-Jean-Marie (1765–1783). "Hirondelle de l'Isle de Bourbon". Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle. Vol. 6. Paris: De L'Imprimerie Royale. Plate 544, fig 2.
  6. [6]
    Oberholser, Harry C. (1906). "A monograph of the genus Collocalia". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 58: 177–212 [179, 182].
  7. [7]
    Gill, Frank; Donsker, David; Rasmussen, Pamela, eds. (January 2022). "Owlet-nightjars, treeswifts & swifts". IOC World Bird List Version 12.1. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  8. [8]
    Jobling, James A. (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. pp. 34, 163. ISBN 978-1-4081-2501-4.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Mascarene_swiftlet, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.