A new species of swift (Aves, Apodidae) from the Early Pliocene of Langebaanweg, South Africa.

We describe a new species of Apus (Aves, Apodidae) from the Early Pliocene of Langebaanweg (Cape Province, South Africa). A single swift humerus was reported from Langebaanweg’s extraordinary rich fossil bird association, but it was never analyzed in detail. More recently, we located a second bone, a carpometacarpus, and completed the comparison of these two specimens with the corresponding bones of as many species of Apodidae as possible, leading to the description of the new species Apus boanoi sp. nov. The new species represents the largest species of the genus Apus known so far and the oldest from Africa; it represents an important calibration point for the split between Apus and Tachymarptis. The rarity of the new species in the very rich Langebaanweg fossil bird assemblage fits with the current paleoenvironmental reconstruction of a flat fluvial and coastal environment not suitable as breeding area for Apus swifts.