AnimalvsAnimal
Common Swift 2025 07 18 02 (cropped)🐦

Photo: Alexis Lours · CC BY 4.0

SpeciesApodiformesApodidae
Birds

🐦Common Swift

Apus apus (Linnaeus, 1758)

The common swift is a medium-sized bird, superficially similar to the barn swallow or house martin but somewhat larger, though not stemming from those passerine species, being in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar contextual development. The swifts' nearest relatives are the New World hummingbirds and the Southeast Asian treeswifts.

Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Videos
None yet
Photos
2
Measurements
10
vs you
≈ 1/1,650th of your weight
Also called
Swift, European Swift, swift, common swift
Conservation status
LCLeast concern

IUCN Red List assessment, 2025.

Population trendDecreasing
Key measurements
Body mass
0.04 kg
Body length
not recorded
Shoulder height
not recorded
Top speed
not recorded
Bite force
not recorded
Maximum lifespan
21 years
All measurements ↓
Facts and figures

Everything we know about the Common Swift

Typical adult figures. Where a value is an estimate rather than a measurement, it says so.

Body mass
0.04 kg
AVONET
Other figures ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Figures vary

  • 0.04 kgAnAgeAnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR)data quality: acceptable
Tail length
0.07 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Wing length
0.16 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Beak length
0.01 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Tarsus length
0.01 m
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Maximum lifespan
21 years
AnAge
Details ↓

data quality: acceptable

Source: AnAge · AnAge build 15, 2023-07-03 (HAGR) · CC BY 3.0

Trophic level
Carnivore
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Habitat
Human Modified
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Lifestyle
Aerial
AVONET
Details ↓

Source: AVONET · v1.1 (Tobias et al. 2022) · CC BY 4.0

Volume l
0 Laverage
Details ↓

Body mass at ~1.0 kg/L, the density of vertebrate tissue.

average = a mean across sexes or species in a group.

Not recorded for Common Swift yet: body length, shoulder height, top speed, bite force.

Where it sits

Family tree

  1. kingdomAnimalia
  2. ›phylumChordata
  3. ›classAves
  4. ›orderApodiformes
  5. ›familyApodidae
  6. ›genusApus
  7. ›speciesApus apus
Full lineage
  1. classBirds · Aves
  2. familyApodidae
  3. subfamilyApodinae
  4. genusApus
All 13 branches ↓
  1. kingdomMetazoa
  2. phylumChordata
  3. subphylumCraniata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. superclassGnathostomata
  6. superclassSarcopterygii
  7. superclassTetrapoda
  8. orderSauria
  9. classBirds · Aves
  10. orderApodiformes
  11. familyApodidae
  12. subfamilyApodinae
  13. genusApus
More

More about the Common Swift

Closest relative on this site
🦅 Andean Condor — last shared an ancestor ≈ 83 million years ago.
In other languages
Gierzwaluw (nl), tornseglare (sv), Mauersegler (de), falciot negre (ca), rorýs obecný (cs), Mursejler (da) … and 26 more languages
More photos
Common Swift 2025 07 18 02 (cropped)Ailes martinet noir
All 2 photos in the gallery →
Videos

No videos of the Common Swift yet.

We have 44,653 videos so far, and none of them features this animal yet.

All videos →
Tools

Compare the Common Swift

Pick a tool — the Common Swift is already selected.

Side by side

Compare every stat with any other animal.

1,697 animals to compareOpen →
Who's bigger?

Stand them on the same floor and see who's bigger.

1206th heaviest of 1,330Open →
Scaling lab

How speed, brain and bite scale with body size. This animal isn't in the sample yet.

Not in the sampleOpen →
Tree of life

See where it sits in the tree of life.

13 branchesOpen →