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Mascarene swiftlet

Species of bird

Mascarene swiftlet
Summary

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.

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

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. 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. A hand-coloured illustration was also published. The Mascarene swiftlet is now placed with 27 other swiftlets in the genus Aerodramus, which was introduced in 1906 by the American ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser. 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.

Two subspecies are recognised:

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

References

References

  1. BirdLife International. (2019). "''Aerodramus francicus''".
  2. (2018). "A morphological revision of Mascarene Swiftlet ''Aerodramus francicus'', with the description of a new subspecies from Reunion". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club.
  3. Gmelin, Johann Friedrich. (1789). "Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis". Georg. Emanuel. Beer.
  4. Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc de. (1779). "Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux". De l'Imprimerie Royale.
  5. (1765–1783). "Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle". De L'Imprimerie Royale.
  6. Oberholser, Harry C.. (1906). "A monograph of the genus ''Collocalia''". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
  7. (January 2022). "Owlet-nightjars, treeswifts & swifts". International Ornithologists' Union.
  8. Jobling, James A.. (2010). "The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names". Christopher Helm.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

apodidae birds-of-mauritius birds-described-in-1789 taxa-named-by-johann-friedrich-gmelin birds-of-réunion aerodramus taxonomy-articles-created-by-polbot
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