Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Apodiformes > Apodidae > Apus > Apus barbatus

Apus barbatus (African Black Swift)

Synonyms: Cypselus barbatus

Wikipedia Abstract

The African black swift or African swift (Apus barbatus) is a small bird in the swift family. It breeds in Africa discontinuously from Liberia, Cameroon, Zaire, Uganda and Kenya south to South Africa, and on Madagascar. The breeding habitat is damp mountains, typically between 1,600 - 2,400 m, but less often at lower altitudes. This species feeds readily over lowland, and can form very large flocks, often with other gregarious swifts. The call is a loud double rasped hissing scream zzzzzzzZZZTT, dissimilar to that of its confusion species.
View Wikipedia Record: Apus barbatus

Infraspecies

Apus barbatus barbatus
Apus barbatus glanvillei
Apus barbatus hollidayi
Apus barbatus oreobates
Apus barbatus roehli
Apus barbatus serlei

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
20
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 6.91784
EDGE Score: 2.06912
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  40 grams
Birth Weight [1]  3 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  100 %
Forages - Aerial [2]  60 %
Forages - Mid-High [2]  40 %
Clutch Size [3]  1
Clutches / Year [1]  1
Fledging [1]  43 days
Incubation [1]  20 days
Maximum Longevity [1]  21 years
Snout to Vent Length [1]  6 inches (16 cm)
Female Maturity [1]  1 year 12 months
Male Maturity [1]  2 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Guinean Forests of West Africa Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No

Predators

Accipiter rufiventris (Rufous-breasted Sparrowhawk)[4]

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
♦ 3Jetz 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
♦ 4del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
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