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Blyth’s Swift, endemic to the Indian subcontinent, is one of the four taxa of the Pacific Swift Apus pacificus complex. It is known to breed in high altitudes (>2,000 m) and disperse widely in winters, as far as the southern extremity of Nilgiri Region of the Western Ghats of India. However, the true extent of its non-breeding range remains uncertain. The present study reports the extended breeding range of the species and also an attempt to confirm its breeding range using the Species Distribution Modeling (SDM). In April 2020 in Anaikatty Hills of Southern Western Ghats, Coimbatore, we recorded an assemblage of four aerial foraging Aves; Indian Swiftlet Aerodramus unicolor (Jerdon, 1840), Asian Palm Swift Cypsiurus balasiensis (J.E. Gray, 1829), Red-rumped Swallow Cecropis daurica (Laxmann, 1769), and a large-sized swift. After referring to the experts’ field guides and discussions, we confirmed the species’ identification as the Blyth’s Swift Apus pacificus leuconyx (Blyth, 1845). The observed individuals of the Blyth’s Swift were carrying food bolus, confirming active breeding of the species in the Nilgiri region of the Southern Western Ghats of India. Also, the available breeding records were projected using Species Distribution Model SDM, the breeding range included the extent of Southern Western Ghats. We claim the first confirmed breeding record of the Blyth’s Swift in the region and an extension of the species breeding range.

Cave-dwelling organisms share different ecological and evolutionary relationships with caves. Based on these interactions, they are categorized as troglobites, troglophiles, and trogloxenes. In India, caves are meagerly explored, and thus cave study is in its infancy in India. Through the present study, we attempted to understand and model the distribution of crickets (Family Phalangopsidae), a critical group of insects - being the primary consumers in the cave ecosystems. We sampled seven caves using belt transects (N = 184; total area covered = 1294.9 m2) with 1 m width. During the survey, we encountered 818 individual crickets (116.85 ± 47.16 SD per cave). Of these, 87.7% encounters were on walls, 7.09% were on the ceiling, and 5.13% were on the cave floor. We used the Single-species Multi-season occupancy model to calculate the overall, zone-wise, and cave-specific occupancy. Cricket occupancy in Baratang caves is seasonal and highly zonal, with detectability ≤1. The cave with less distinct zones has more consistent occupancies and zero chances of extinction and colonization. Hence, these caves serve as suitable habitat for the source population. A negative correlation of cave morphometric features (cave volume, wall surface area, and floor surface area), and density of crickets (p < 0.05), might need further validation. The study shows the need for detailed studies regarding cricket taxonomy and ecology towards establishing the conservation importance of the species and their habitat in the islands.

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