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

Swifts spend most of their life aloft, have very short legs and use them mostly to cling to surfaces.

The genus Apus was erected by the Italian naturalist Giovanni Antonio Scopoli in 1777 based on tautonymy and the common swift which had been given the binomial name Hirundo apus by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758.

[6] In 1801, Bosc gave the genus name Apus to the small crustacean organisms known today as Triops, 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.