''Chaetura'' is a genus of needletail

swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIF ...

s found in the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. Although they resemble

swallow 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 ...

s, the two are not at all closely related; this is instead a result of

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

. Some members of ''Chaetura'' are long-distance migrants, while others are year-round residents. The genus name is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

''khaite,'' for long flowing hair, and ''oura,'' for tail, referring to the stiff feathers projecting from the end of the tail. * Grey-rumped swift – ''Chaetura cinereiventris'' * Band-rumped swift – ''Chaetura spinicaudus'' * Lesser Antillean swift – ''Chaetura martinica'' * Costa Rican swift – ''Chaetura fumosa'' * Pale-rumped swift – ''Chaetura egregia'' * Chimney swift – ''Chaetura pelagica'' * Vaux's swift – ''Chaetura vauxi'' * Chapman's swift – ''Chaetura chapmani'' * Ashy-tailed swift – ''Chaetura andrei'' * Sick's swift – ''Chaetura meridionalis'' * Short-tailed swift – ''Chaetura brachyura'' A

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

species, ''Chaetura baconica'', was described from

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

deposits of

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

References

Bird genera {{Apodiformes-stub