Apus (bird)

Apus is a genus of birds in the family Apodidae. They are called swifts in English. Not all swifts are in genus Apus, but all birds in Apus are swifts.

Apus
Apus apus cm01.jpg
Common swifts (Apus apus)
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Apodiformes
Family: Apodidae
Subfamily: Apodinae
Genus: Apus
Scopoli, 1777
Species

See text

Taxonomy

Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli made the genus Apus in 1777. He did it by looking at tautonymy and the common swift. Carl Linnaeus named the common swift Hirundo apus in 1758.[1][2][3] The name Apus is Latin for a swift. The word is from Ancient Greek : α, a, "without," and πούς, pous, "foot." People thought they were swallows without feet.[4]

Before the 1950s, scientists disagreed about which animals should have the name Apus.[5] In 1801, Bosc gave the small crustacean animals that we call Triops today the genus name Apus, and later writers continued to use it for them. In 1909, Keilhack said this was incorrect because there was already a group of birds called Apus. It was not until 1958 that the scientists in the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) decided to use the name for only birds.[6]

Species

The genus has 20 species:[7]

Some birds in Apus are dead. Scientists learned about them from fossils, marks that their bones left in rocks:

  • Apus gaillardi (Middle/Late Miocene of La Grive-St.-Alban, France)
  • Apus wetmorei (Early - Late Pliocene? of SC and SE Europe)
  • Apus baranensis (Late Pliocene of SE Europe)
  • Apus submelba (Middle Pleistocene of Slovakia)

Scientists say the bird "Apus" ignotus is really in Procypseloides.

References

  1. Scopoli, Giovanni Antonio (1777). Introductio ad historiam naturalem (in Latina). Pragae: Apud Wolfgangum Gerle. p. 483.
  2. Peters, James Lee, ed. (1940). Check-list of Birds of the World. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 244.
  3. Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturæ per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis, Volume 1 (in Latina). Vol. 1 (10th ed.). Holmiae:Laurentii Salvii. p. 192.
  4. Jobling, James A (2010). The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. London: Christopher Helm. p. 52. ISBN 978-1408125014.
  5. O. S. Møller; J. Olesen; J. T. Høeg (2003). "SEM studies on the early larval development of Triops crancriformis (Bosc)(Crustacea: Branchiopoda, Notostraca)". Acta Zoologica. 84 (4): 267–284. doi:10.1046/j.1463-6395.2003.00146.x.
  6. Hemming, Francis, ed. (1958). "Opinion 502". Opinions and Declarations Rendered by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Vol. 18. London: International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature. pp. 65–120.
  7. Gill, Frank; Donsker, David, eds. (2017). "Owlet-nightjars, treeswifts & swifts". World Bird List Version 7.2. International Ornithologists' Union. Retrieved 2 June 2017.