White-tailed swallow

White-tailed swallow
At Mega, Ethiopia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Hirundo
Species:
H. megaensis
Binomial name
Hirundo megaensis
Benson, 1942

The white-tailed swallow (Hirundo megaensis) is a small swallow belonging to the family Hirundinidae and is endemic to Oromia, Ethiopia.[2] It is commonly referred to as "Benson's swallow" after the ornithologist Constatine Walter Benson, who named the species.[3] This small bird is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as there is a progressive declination of the species which now consists of less than 10,000 adult individuals worldwide.[1][4] It has a surprisingly small range for a swallow, as it is wholly dependent on a cooler "bubble" surrounding its small range, likely for proper breeding success. It is one of the most threatened bird species by climate change and a massive range reduction is projected in the future.[5]

  1. ^ a b BirdLife International (2012). "Hirundo megaensis". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ^ Gedeon, K., Zewdie, C., & Töpfer, T. (2017). The birds (Aves) of Oromia, Ethiopia – an annotated checklist. European Journal of Taxonomy, 306: 1–69. doi: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2017.306
  3. ^ Benson, C.W. (1942). A new species and ten new races from southern Abyssinia. Bulletin of The British Ornithologists' Club, 63: 8-19. https://archive.org/details/biostor-116712/page/n2
  4. ^ BirdLife International. (2016). White-tailed Swallow: Hirundo megaensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T22712330A94329844. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22712330A94329844.en
  5. ^ Bladon, Andrew J.; Donald, Paul F.; Collar, Nigel J.; Denge, Jarso; Dadacha, Galgalo; Wondafrash, Mengistu; Green, Rhys E. (2021-05-19). "Climatic change and extinction risk of two globally threatened Ethiopian endemic bird species". PLOS ONE. 16 (5): e0249633. Bibcode:2021PLoSO..1649633B. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249633. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 8133463. PMID 34010302.