Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Apodiformes > Apodidae > Hirundapus > Hirundapus caudacutus

Hirundapus caudacutus (White-throated Needletail)

Synonyms: Hirundo caudacuta (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The white-throated needletail (Hirundapus caudacutus), also known as needle-tailed swift or spine-tailed swift, is a large swift. It is commonly reputed to reach speeds of up to 170 km/h (105 mph), though this has not been verified. These birds have very short legs which they use only for clinging to vertical surfaces. They build their nests in rock crevices in cliffs or hollow trees. They never settle voluntarily on the ground and spend most of their lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in their beaks.
View Wikipedia Record: Hirundapus caudacutus

Infraspecies

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
7
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
31
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 15.0944
EDGE Score: 2.77847

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  118 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  100 %
Forages - Aerial [2]  100 %
Clutch Size [4]  4
Incubation [3]  40 days
Snout to Vent Length [1]  8 inches (20 cm)
Speed [5]  105.986 MPH (47.38 m/s)

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Himalaya Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan No
Indo-Burma Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam No
Mountains of Southwest China China, Myanmar No
New Zealand New Zealand No

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Haemoproteus apodus <Unverified Name>[6]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
3del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
4Jetz W, Sekercioglu CH, Böhning-Gaese K (2008) The Worldwide Variation in Avian Clutch Size across Species and Space PLoS Biol 6(12): e303. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060303
5Alerstam T, Rosén M, Bäckman J, Ericson PGP, Hellgren O (2007) Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects. PLoS Biol 5(8): e197. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050197
6Species Interactions of Australia Database, Atlas of Living Australia, Version ala-csv-2012-11-19
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0