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.
Before the 1950s, there was some controversy over which group of organism should have the
genus name Apus.[6] 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 was not until 1958 that the controversy finally ended when the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) ruled against the use of the genus name Apus for the crustaceans and instead recognized the term Triops.[7]
^O. S. Møller; J. Olesen; J. T. Høeg (2003). "SEM studies on the early larval development of Triops crancriformis (Bosc)(Crustacea: Branchiopoda, Notostraca)". Acta Zoologica. 84 (4): 267–284.
doi:
10.1046/j.1463-6395.2003.00146.x.