Chordeiles
Genus of birds
Chordeiles is a New World genus of nighthawks in the nightjar family Caprimulgidae.
01Taxonomy
The genus Chordeiles was introduced in 1832 by the English zoologist William Swainson with Caprimulgus virginianus Gmelin, JF, 1789, as the type species. This is a junior synonym of Camprimulgus minor Forster, JR, 1771, the common nighthawk. The genus name is derived from Ancient Greek χορδή/khordē meaning "chord" and δείλη/deilē meaning "evening".
The genus contains the following six species:
| Image | Scientific name | Common name | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chordeiles pusillus | Least nighthawk | northern South America | |
| Chordeiles rupestris | Sand-coloured nighthawk | Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela | |
| Chordeiles minor | Common nighthawk | South America to northern North America. | |
| Chordeiles acutipennis | Lesser nighthawk | United States through South America | |
| Chordeiles gundlachii | Antillean nighthawk | the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas and the Florida Keys in the United States. | |
| Chordeiles nacunda | Nacunda nighthawk | Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Chordeiles”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Common Nighthawk.JPG by Daniel Berganza (Albuttlee), CC BY-SA 3.0
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