Apus (genus)

The bird genus Apus comprise some of the Old World members of the family Apodidae, commonly known as swifts.

They are among the fastest birds in the world. They resemble swallows, to which they are not related, but have shorter tails and sickle-shaped wings. Swifts spend most of their life aloft, have very short legs and use them mostly to cling to surfaces.

Taxonomic history of Apus

Before the 1950s, there was some controversy over which group of organism should have the genus name Apus. In 1801 Bosc gave the small crustacean organisms known today as Triops the genus name Apus, and later authors continued to use this term. Keilhack suggested (in 1909) that this was incorrect since there was already an avian genus named Apus by Scopoli in 1777 . It wasn't until 1958 when the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ruled against the use of the genus name Apus and instead recognized the term Triops that the controversy finally ended.

Systematics

Apus

Apus is a faint constellation in the southern sky, first defined in the late 16th century. Its name means "no feet" in Greek, and it represents a bird-of-paradise (which were once believed to lack feet). Its genitive is "Apodis".

History

Apus was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35 cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 or 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. Plancius called the constellation Paradysvogel Apis Indica; the first word is Dutch for "bird of paradise", of genus Pteridophora, but the others are Latin for "Indian Bee". Apis (Latin for "bee") is presumably an error for avis ("bird").

The name Apus is derived from the Greek apous, meaning "without feet". This referred to the Western misconception that the bird-of-paradise had no feet, which arose because the only specimens available in the West had their feet and wings removed. Such specimens began to arrive in Europe in 1522, when the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition brought them home.

Apus (Chinese astronomy)

The modern constellation Apus is not included in the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions system of traditional Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on the work of Xu Guangqi and the German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell in the late Ming Dynasty, this constellation has been classified as one of the 23 Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu) under the name Exotic Bird (異雀, Yìquè).

The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 天燕座 (tiān yàn zuò), meaning "the heaven swallow constellation".

Stars

The map of Chinese constellation in constellation Apus area consists of :

See also

References

External links

Apus (disambiguation)

Apus is a constellation.

Apus or APUS may also refer to:

See also