Asian house martin
| Asian house martin | |
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| In Taiwan | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Passeriformes |
| Family: | Hirundinidae |
| Genus: | Delichon |
| Species: | D. dasypus |
| Binomial name | |
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Delichon dasypus (Bonaparte, 1850) |
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| Yellow – breeding range Blue – wintering range |
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The Asian house martin (Delichon dasypus) is a migratory passerine bird of the swallow family Hirundinidae. It has mainly blue-black upperparts, other than its white rump, and has pale grey underparts. Its three subspecies breed in the Himalayas and in central and eastern Asia, and spend the winter lower in the mountains or in Southeast Asia. This species is locally abundant and is expanding northward in Siberia, so there are no concerns about its conservation status.
This martin breeds in colonies, building mud nests under an overhang on a vertical cliff or the wall of a building. Both sexes build the nest, incubate the three or four white eggs and feed the chicks. The Asian house martin feeds on small insects taken in flight, usually caught high in the air. The presence of terrestrial springtails and Lepidoptera larvae in its diet indicates that food is sometime picked from the ground.
The Asian house martin was first formally described from a bird collected in Borneo by French naturalist and ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1850 as Chelidon dasypus, shortly before it was moved to the new genus Delichon by British entomologist Frederic Moore and American naturalist Thomas Horsfield in 1854.Delichon is an anagram of the Ancient Greek term χελιδών (chelīdōn), meaning "swallow", and dasypus is from Greek δασύπους "rough-legged". This martin's closest relatives are the two other members of the Delichon genus, the Nepal house martin and the common house martin. There are three subspecies:
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