Owner Comments:
While I love pretty much any coin with a dinosaur, avian or non-avian, on it, I especially love coins with cute little baby dinosaurs on them! A great coin from Canada brings us both more baby dinosaurs and a new dinosaur for the collection that is also the most widespread species of swallow in the world: The Barn Swallow, species name Hirundo rustica.
As the coin shows, the Barn Swallow is a stunningly beautiful modern dinosaur. Barn Swallows range from 17–19 cm (6.7–7.5 in) in length with a wingspan range of 32–34.5 cm (12.6–13.6 in) and a weight range of16–22 g (0.56–0.78 oz). Barn Swallows exhibit minor sexual dimorphism as females have shorter tail streamers, a paler underside and exhibits less gloss in their blue feathers than males. As with all theropod dinosaurs with blue coloration, the Barn Swallow’s blue coloration is due to structural coloration, where light refracting through the feathers appears blue to our eyes, rather than true pigmentation. Geographically, Barn Swallows are strongly migratory, breeding across North America, Europe and Central Asia and migrating to South America, Southern Asia and Africa in their non-breeding season. This huge geographic range has resulted in six different subspecies of Barn Swallow. Barn Swallows can live almost anywhere that is open country with large numbers of insects and nesting structures. This essentially means that the Barn Swallow can live almost anywhere due the changing of the environment by humans.
As is the case with most theropods both extant and extinct, the Barn Swallow is a predator. In this case, the prey is insects, which the Barn Swallow snaps out of the air while in flight. Barn Swallows will also take arachnids and snails while not in flight. Barn Swallows are strongly carnivorous, and they only rarely eat berries or other plant matter. As far as predators go, Barn Swallows actually have few predators in spite of their small size. The only real predators Barn Swallows have are smaller raptors, such as the Peregrine Falcon, Gulls, Corvids and some snakes in parts of their range. Domestic cats will also occasionally take a Barn Swallow, but this is rare compared to the success rates of the Barn Swallow’s reptilian predators.
Barn Swallow pairs typically produce between two and seven white eggs with brown spots. Both sexes incubate the eggs, but the female does most of the incubating. After about 14-19 days, the eggs hatch. The altricial chicks are the fed and cared for by both parents before fledging about 18-23 days after hatching. The chicks are then fed by the parents for an additional week before having to feed themselves. Barn Swallows typically produce two broods per breeding season, with the young from the first brood often helping their parents feed and protect their younger siblings. Though they are small, Barn Swallows are extremely vicious when it comes to protecting their young or their younger siblings when helping their parents. They can drive off many predators with the ferocity of their attacks as most predators would rather find easier prey to take if it is available. Interestingly, Barn Swallows will readily breed with other Swallow species, such as the Cliff Swallow, the Cave Swallow and the House Martin and these matches produce viable hybrids across the Barn Swallow’s shared range with these birds. Barn Swallows live for between 4 and 8 years.