Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Passeriformes > Hirundinidae > Tachycineta > Tachycineta thalassina

Tachycineta thalassina (Violet-green Swallow)

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Wikipedia Abstract

The violet-green swallow (Tachycineta thalassina) is a small North American passerine bird in the swallow family. These aerial insectivores are distributed along the west coast from Alaska to Mexico, extending as far east as Montana and Texas. With an appearance very similar to the tree swallow, these individuals can be identified by the white rump side-patches that appear to separate their green back and purple tail. Violet-green swallows are secondary cavity nesters, found in a number of habitats including deciduous and coniferous forests. In addition to nesting in tree holes within these habitats, they are also widely observed nesting in the cracks of large cliffs.
View Wikipedia Record: Tachycineta thalassina

Infraspecies

Tachycineta thalassina brachyptera
Tachycineta thalassina thalassina

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
22
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.81544
EDGE Score: 2.17651
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  14 grams
Birth Weight [3]  2 grams
Breeding Habitat [2]  Temperate western forests, Mexican pine-oak forests, Desert scrub, Pine forests
Wintering Geography [2]  Pacific Lowlands
Wintering Habitat [2]  Generalist
Diet [4]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [4]  100 %
Forages - Aerial [4]  20 %
Forages - Canopy [4]  20 %
Forages - Mid-High [4]  20 %
Forages - Understory [4]  20 %
Forages - Ground [4]  20 %
Clutch Size [5]  5
Clutches / Year [3]  1
Fledging [1]  24 days
Global Population (2017 est.) [2]  8,500,000
Incubation [3]  14 days
Maximum Longevity [3]  7 years
Migration [6]  Intercontinental
Wing Span [7]  11 inches (.271 m)
Female Maturity [1]  0 years 12 months

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (149)

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No
Mesoamerica Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama No

Prey / Diet

Predators

Accipiter striatus (Sharp-shinned Hawk)[8]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ceratophyllus idius[9]
Ceratophyllus niger (Western chicken flea)[9]
Ceratophyllus styx riparius[9]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

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
♦ 2Partners in Flight Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2017. Accessed on January 2018.
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Hamish 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
♦ 5Jetz 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
♦ 6Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 7The turning- and linear-maneuvering performance of birds: the cost of efficiency for coursing insectivores, Douglas R. Warrick, Can. J. Zool. 76: 1063–1079 (1998)
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9International Flea Database
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