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. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. It was previously considered a subspecies of the glossy swiftlet. == 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. The specific epithet affinis is Latin for "related" or "applied". 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. There are five subspecies: 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…