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Species of bird

The lesser swallow tailed swift or Cayenne swift (Panyptila cayennensis) is a species of bird in subfamily Apodinae of the swift family Apodidae. It is found from southern Mexico through Central America; in every mainland South America country except Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay; and on Trinidad.

The lesser swallow tailed swift was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with all the swallows and swifts in the genus Hirundo and coined the binomial name Hirundo cayennensis. Gmelin based his description on the "Martinet à collier blanc" that had been described in 1779 by the French polymath Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon from a specimen collected in Cayenne, French Guiana. A hand colored illustration of the bird was also published. The lesser swallow tailed swift is now placed with the great swallow tailed swift in the genus Panyptila that was introduced in 1847 by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis. According to the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) the species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognized.

The lesser swallow tailed swift is a year round resident throughout its range.

Like all swifts, the lesser swallow tailed swift is an aerial insectivore. Though its diet has not been detailed, in a study in Venezuela it fed mainly on Diptera with smaller numbers of Homoptera and Hymenoptera and very small numbers from other orders. It is less gregarious than other swifts and is usually seen as individuals or pairs. If other swift species are present it will normally feed above them, although it stays below Cypseloides species such as chestnut collared swift.

The IUCN has assessed the lesser swallow tailed swift as being of Least Concern. It has an extremely large range and an estimated population of at least 500,000 mature individuals. The population is believed to be slowly decreasing and no immediate threats have been identified. In various parts of its range it is considered uncommon to locally fairly common, and is "[u]sually encountered in small numbers only".