Plume-toed swiftlet

The plume-toed swiftlet (Collocalia affinis) is a small bird in the swift family Apodidae. It is found on some eastern Indian Ocean islands, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and lowland Borneo.

Plume-toed swiftlet
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Clade:	Strisores
Order:	Apodiformes
Family:	Apodidae
Genus:	Collocalia
Species:	C. affinis
Binomial name
Collocalia affinis Beavan, 1867
Synonyms
Collocalia esculenta affinis

Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It was previously considered a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet.

Plume-toed swiftlets entering and exiting their nests

Taxonomy

The plume-toed swiftlet was described by the English ornithologist Robert Cecil Beavan in 1867 and given current binomial name Collocalia affinis. The type locality is Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.^[1][2] The specific epithet affinis is Latin for "related" or "applied".^[3] The plume-toed swiftlet was previously treated as a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet but was promoted to species status based on the results of a detailed analysis of the swiftlets in the genus Collocalia published in 2017.^[4][5]

There are five subspecies:^[5]

• C. a. affinis Beavan, 1867 – Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean
• C. a. elachyptera Oberholser, 1906 – Mergui Archipelago off the west coast of southern Myanmar
• C. a. vanderbilti Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee & Ripley, 1940 – Nias Island off the west coast of Sumatra
• C. a. oberholseri Stresemann, 1912 – Batu and Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra
• C. a. cyanoptila Oberholser, 1906 – Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Natuna Islands and lowland Borneo

Plume-toed swiftlet leaving its nest

Description

The plume-toed swiftlet is 9–10 cm (3.5–3.9 in) in length with a square tail.^[6] The back and upper surface of the wings are uniformly dark greenish-blue with a moderate gloss. The throat and upper breast are dark grey merging into large greyish chevrons over the lower breast and flanks, usually becoming white over the belly. There is a tuft of small feathers on the hallux, the rear facing toe. This species lacks a pale contrasting rump and has no white spots on the inner webs of the tail feathers.^[4]