Hirundinidae

The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The term "swallow" is used as the common name for Hirundo rustica in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Around 90 species of Hirundinidae are known, divided into 21 genera, with the greatest diversity found in Africa, which is also thought to be where they evolved as hole-nesters. They also occur on a number of oceanic islands. A number of European and North American species are long-distance migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are nonmigratory.

Hirundinidae

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
swallowPBDB
Sits inside
PasseriformesPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 58 occurrencesPleistocene — about 51 of 58 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 7 of 58 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 10 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 40 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

58 occurrences of Hirundinidae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

58 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Wicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°W

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The named rock units Hirundinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 57 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hirundinidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Hirundinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,368 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Hirundinidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

39 references

Each of the 58 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 27 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Hirundinidae

Credit
Charles J. Sharp
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hirundinidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPasseriformes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1815