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Monday 12 October 2026

A common swift in flight against a soft grey background, its long, curved wings spread wide and its tail forked.
Photo: Alexis Lours · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Picked by voters

Common swift

After nesting, it spends ten months in the air, and some swifts never land once in all that time.

Lives in
Open skyBreeds across Europe and Asia, then spends the winter in the skies over central and southern Africa
More about the common swiftScientific name, size and Red List status
Scientific name
Apus apus
Size
16–17 cm long, with a wingspan of 42–48 cm
IUCN Red List
Least concern

Not threatened at the moment, according to the IUCN Red List. See the assessment

Fact source: Hedenström et al., 2016

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People can’t care about animals they have never heard of.

Scientists still discover thousands of new animal species every year, while many others are disappearing because of habitat loss and climate change. Some die out before anyone has described them.

10,000+

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University of Arizona, 2025

86%

of species on Earth, and 91% in the ocean, have not been described yet.

Mora et al., 2011

73%

average drop in monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020.

WWF Living Planet Report, 2024