The short-tailed nighthawk (Lurocalis semitorquatus) is a species of nightjar in the family Caprimulgidae.

[2] The short-tailed nighthawk was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[3] Gmelin based his description on "Le petit egoulevent tacheté de Cayenne" that had been described in 1779 by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux.

The wings are also dark brown with muted spots of several colors, an unlike most other nighthawks, do not have bold white markings.

The tail is brown with tawny or grayish bars and a narrow buffy or whitish band at the end.

The subspecies differ somewhat in size and in the extent and intensity of the spots, speckles, and bars that overlay the ground color.

[10] The short-tailed nighthawk, with its former subspecies the rufous-bellied nightjar, are the only members of their family known to nest in trees.